Welcome to the first edition of The Shooting Star, Tri-Star Plastics Corp.’s new technical brief. This will be published and sent via e-mail periodically to inform our customers of New Products, New Materials and successful Applications as soon as they are available. We hope you will find the information below helpful and interesting. Pass it along to your colleagues.

Trilon AR is an extremely abrasion resistant bearing and wear polymer material. Field proven to be the most wear resistant material in severe and abrasive conditions, it is rapidly becoming the designer’s choice for highly abrasive environments. Properties include extreme abrasion resistance, zero moisture absorption, UV resistance and extremely low friction. Trilon AR adds up to double the wear life over virgin UHMW, and up to four times standard bearing materials such as Acetal and Nylon. Added life means lower replacement and installation costs, and less down time.

Trilon AR is impregnated with solid lubricants as well as silicone oil throughout the material. As the mating material slides along, the material polishes to a glass smooth finish and releases these fillers to reduce friction as well as frictional heat build-up. The result is a self-lubricating bearing material with a dynamic friction of .07. This is less than half the friction of most bearing materials. As a result, less energy is used to drive the system thereby reducing operating costs.

With a specific gravity of .932-.960 it is eight times lighter than stainless steel and can be easily lifted and installed. It can be attached to most metallic substrates using standard fasteners. Weld washers, welding studs, bolt and ferrule assemblies or nut and bolts are commonly used and available through Tri-Star customer service. Applications include chute liners, chain guides, auger bed liners, doctor blades and truck bed liners. Applications are common in the mining, pulp & paper, timber handling and rail industries.

Trilon AR is available in standard 4ft x 10ft sheet stock up to 4" thick, and rod up to 6" in diameter. It can be fabricated in the field or machined into custom components using carbide or diamond tooling. Due to its chemical make-up and fillers, close tolerance machining is sometimes a challenge. For more information, the Trilon AR product bulletin can be downloaded from our web site at www.tstar.com or you may call one of Tri-Star’s technical salespeople to help answer your questions or provide you with a sample.