Rogers Corporation - Silicone Solutions for Safety, Comfort, and Sound Control

High performance features, combined with exceptional technical support, product quality and consistency, are the key reasons that Rogers BISCO® silicones are considered the products of choice for railway interiors.

FIRE-RETARDANT ELASTOMERS FOR RAILWAY INTERIORS

BISCO silicones are a series of versatile, fire-retardant elastomers that offer many significant benefits for gasketing, cushioning, and noise control inside railcars. Their unmatched resistance to stress relaxation and compression set enhances the materials' ability to continuously provide vibration isolation, shock absorption, sound reduction and sealing in railcar interiors.

Their unique, environmentally compliant formulations allow them to safely resist the propagation of flame while emitting extremely low amounts of toxic smoke. BISCO Silicone foams, solid rubbers, and composites are manufactured within tight tolerances to precise increments of thickness, weight and hardness, offering engineers a wide range of design solutions.

RAIL PASSENGER SAFETY

Compliance to regulations regarding flammability, smoke generation and toxic smoke concentrations are critical to the success of products within the passenger rail market and to the safety of its customers. Rogers firmly believes in passenger safety and understands the need for compliance to such standards.

All BISCO silicones have been tested to various international standards for flame, smoke and toxicity, and demonstrate exceptionally low amounts of smoke generation, toxic smoke, and flame spread.

BISCO Fire Protective Covering (FPC) products offer additional resistance to fires by protecting floors and passenger cabins from exposure to flames. The material can safely resist the penetration of flames at 1,000°C for a minimum of 30 minutes.

BISCO Silicones have been rated to following standards:

• NFPA 130
• BS 6853 Cat 1a
• NF F 16-101/102
• DIN 5510

RAILCAR SOUND BARRIERS - NOISE MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS

The acoustics of a railcar are critical to vehicle quality and passenger comfort. The interaction between the wheels of a railcar and the track is the most significant source of sound and vibration within railcars. BISCO HT-200 Sound Block materials are flexible, solid materials designed to block the transmission of sound waves through their close-packed molecular structure. Since the performance of sound barrier materials will vary with surface weights, BISCO Sound Block products are offered in a range of weights.

Vibration that is transmitted into vehicle interiors through the track-wheel interaction can be significantly reduced by use of vibration isolators. BISCO Silicones are highly resilient elastomers that provide noise control over a broad frequency range. They reduce the transmission of structure-borne energy to a surface by deflecting the individual vibrations. As the vibrations impact the foam surface, the foam compresses slightly and then rebounds, thereby channeling the vibrations back towards the source. The exceptional resistance to compression set and stress relaxation allows BISCO Silicone foam to provide isolation over a longer lifetime than other foam technologies or competitive silicone products. Applications include floating floors, seat mounts, and mountings for wall panels.

EXPERIENCING LONG-TERM COMFORT

BISCO Silicone materials can offer many advantages over conventional elastomers such as EPDM, SBR, and Neoprene. The compressibility of BISCO silicone foams allows them to readily conform to structures of various shapes and sizes. They are manufactured to provide a specified degree of cushioning, sealing and vibration isolation under a wide range of environmental conditions. While many other elastomers will quickly relax or collapse from their original manufactured state, BISCO silicones will retain their memory upon exposure to time, temperature, sunlight and other environmental conditions. A lack of memory will cause a gasket to lose its dust or moisture seal, a seat to lose its cushioning support, and a structure to become detached from its vibration isolation or damping points.

In the case of acoustics, this loss of memory can also create gaps within the structure that will allow air-borne sound to penetrate into the vehicle interior. The extreme performance of the BISCO silicone materials ensures passengers will enjoy a safe, quiet and comfortable ride within railcars.