Vital Base AS

 

Raw materials - the foundation of any product

PU-foam, seen through the electron microscope

 

The making of comfort demands knowledge of raw materials

Vital Base boasts high competence on which factors influence comfort and how the body behaves when sitting. To benefit from this knowledge you also need to know what materials to use to achieve your goals.

PU-foam – or polyurethane foam is the most applied and most versatile material for creating seating comfort.

PU comes in a wide variety of types, and can be modified to suit almost any wish. For furniture, more than 90 % of cushions and other parts are made with PU. Textiles and other man-made raw materials are important ingredients in the making of sitting comfort.

At Vital Base we scrutinize all raw materials and test them, if necessary, to make sure they meet the harsh requirements set by customers and authorities.

Here are some of them in plain language:

PLASTIC FOAM

Polyurethane (PU) is an elastic and soft plastic material that is particularly suited for making cushions. It possesses both the necessary weight-bearing capacities and the soft resilience that make up much of the feeling of comfort. For cushions we always use the softer variants. 

KOSPOFLEX is a loose filling made of PU cut into tiny little snippets ( 4 x 8 x 15 mm).  Cushions with KospoFlex filling are normally sewn with compartments corresponding with the shape of the cushion. KospoFlex is filled into these compartments and at different filling rates for each compartment.

KospoFlex can be mixed with other materials, such as downs and feathers. It is then called KospoFe and demand down proof casings.  A third variant is the superfine KospoFlex cut to 4 x 4 x 4 mm and mixed with super-slick microfibers of polyethylene or polypropylene. Both down and micro-fibers make the mix smooth and soft, and effectively prevent lumping.

KospoFlex (without down) and KospoFiber (with micro-fibers) may be washed, even at 95 °C. These mixes are therefore preferred with pillows and cushions to the health care sector.

KospoFe (with down) is particularly good for comfort furniture.

 

VISCO ELASTIC PU FOAM

Visco-foam is a variant of PU with “slow” elasticity. This is seen best if you compress a piece of foam and watch it regain its original shape. Most normal foams are too resilient for this. By this feature, Visco-foams are particularly good for pressure relief and energy absorption in mattresses and some cushions.

 

POLYESTER FIBER

PES is a very strong plastic which can be shaped into fibers and we all know work-clothes made with polyester. For the use as softener in cushions, PES has been around since the 1960s. The material consists of millions of thin, rather long fibers (60 – 80 mm) that are curled and thus creates a volume if put together by the millions. It is combed or carded into layers thus building up volume. As PES has poor elastic properties, it is not very well suited for cushions. However, PES fiber is used in thin layers (2 cm) around PU-foam to soften up the flat edges.

3-D (Three-dimensional materials)

These new materials are actually made of PES fibers, but of a different thickness and type than mentioned above. 3-D is a PES fiber (quite complicated) knitted into two other textiles lying on top of each other. The quality and make of the “intertwining” PES determines the properties of the finished result. Normally there is a distance between the two textiles, and this makes 3-D into “cushion material”. By combining different properties, heights, resilience and other properties, we can make a cushion only with 3-D as building material.

3-D has superb ventilating properties, and accumulation of heat and moisture is considerably reduced.

VB VENTI is a cushion for wheelchairs that is made entirely with 3-D, also the outer cover.

 

CLIMATHERM

NASA leads the way

ClimaTherm ™ is a textile combination made for advanced cushions for wheelchairs. ClimaTherm ™ both ventilates and keeps constant temperature. The R & D at Vital Base AS developed ClimaTherm to improve upon the comfort in cushions that were designed to be used many hours a day.  By grabbing the opportunity when NASA started to use PCM, Vital Base made a giant’s leap into the future. PCM – Phase Change Material – is a material that keeps a rather constant temperature when it is exposed to a temperature slightly above or below its set temperature. NASA put PCM into space-suits to help astronauts keep their temperature when working outside the space craft – where temperatures vary quite a lot.

In ClimaTherm™ Vital Base has achieved to create a micro-climate close to the body where moisture and temperature are kept at bay, and where comfort is increased. Tests prove that the time it takes for the temperature to rise to uncomfortable 36 °C  is somewhere between 70 and 100 minutes. With ClimaTherm it takes about 1000 minutes, or 16,67 hours. That’s an achievement.

The “normal” temperature in ClimaTherm™ is 28 °C.