Tri-Star Plastics Corp. partners closely with several major theme parks to solve difficult wear and lubrication problems. One particular application at Universal Studios is an ARB dog assembly for the Jurassic Park ride. As the car, or boat in this case, is pulled up an incline there are release arms, called dogs, that drop into a ratchet rail to prevent the unit from slipping backwards. To protect these dogs from metal to metal contact, the customer had mechanically attached a shoe made from either UHMW-PE or cast nylon. While these worked well at preventing the metal contact, they failed due to very high compression at the apex of the incline. The forces on each shoe were well over the compressive strength of the materials.

Tri-Star Plastics Corp's engineering team developed Ultraflon GTE, a unique plastic alloy which is a mineral modified thermoplastic. With the use of this unparalleled development, Universal Studios has seen the life of this application exceed ten times.

Ultraflon GTE has proven it can withstand the compressive loads of the ride and offer the buffering between the metal dog and the ratchet track. The use of Ultraflon GTE also allows Tri-Star to produce a net molded part, saving the customer from the machining cost incurred with previous materials. All of this adds up to a significant dollar savings in reduced downtime, longer life, and less damage to the surrounding metal components.

Think of us as your in-house plastics engineering department.
Design, Prototype, Production.... Tri-Star Delivers.

For more information on Ultraflon GTE and where it can be applied, contact Tri-Star Plastics Corp. at 1-800-TRI-STAR or visit us on the web at www.tstar.com.