Trends in adhesive tape

Industrial design in sports accessories

According to the UK’s Design Week, an avid swimmer has developed a water-resistant watch incorporating adhesive tape in its design. Andrea Chappell reports that a “rubber casing is backed with adhesive tape (just like a sticking-plaster), so it may be stuck to either skin or clothing”. Adhesive tape is part of “the cheapest and most disposable technology” used in this invention, which is “similar to stick-on thermometers” and “may have other applications beyond sport.” For more information, visit http://www.designweek.co.uk/news/worldly-goods/1106113.article.

Improved smartphone lenses

Moment Lenses has designed smartphone 2x telephoto and wide angle-lenses that “are better than stock -- or any other optical add-on out there.” Double-sided adhesive tape allows a metal plate to stick to the phone, and “a bayonet action affixes the removable lens to the plate.” Patrick Nelson at TechNewsWorld™ reports that the lenses can be pre-ordered through Kickstarter. For more information, visit http://www.technewsworld.com/story/79827.html.

Tape used in “huge leap of miniaturisation of technology”

The demand for all things electronic to be made thinner and lighter never ceases. Scientists at the University of Washington have constructed the thinnest-known LEDs that can be used as a more efficient source of light energy in electronics. According to an article by Michelle Ma at Product Design and Development Net, the LEDs are a just a few atoms thick and strong enough for use in the next generation of “portable and integrated electronic devices”. The UW LED is made of tungsten diselenide through a process in which “researchers use regular adhesive tape to extract a single sheet of this material from thick, layered pieces in a method inspired by the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to the University of Manchester for isolating one-atom-thick flakes of carbon, called graphene, from a piece of graphite.” For more information, visit http://www.pddnet.com/news/2014/03/thinnest-possible-leds-be-stronger-more-energy-efficient.

Peeling tape releases x-rays and ‘complex’ sounds

The technology blog io9.com reports that according to Nature, “when you're yanking tape off the spool, you're actually throwing off highly energetic particles and ultrasonic noises.” Peeling adhesive tape is actually a form of fracturing in which the tape “emits X-rays and ultrasonic sounds”. The “’screeching’ sound of tape peeling” is largely “in the above-audible range for humans.” For more information, visit http://io9.com/what-really-happens-when-you-rip-off-a-bandage-1548957999.

The Mechanical Design Forum

Some Afera Members have joined www.mechanicaldesignforum.com, “the no. 1 online community of Mechanical Design Engineers,” with the idea of starting a conversation with potential new user markets of adhesive tape.