Rubber

The durability challenge: How to permanently mark rubber surfaces

Coding and marking solutions for the rubber industry

Rubber is a material with many valuable properties for industry. It is elastic, extremely resistant and water-repellent. However, if elastomers and products or semi-finished products made of rubber are to be marked, special solutions are required. In rubber marking and rubber labeling, batch numbers, production codes, color line markings and logistics markings have to be applied to rubber surfaces using coding and marking systems and labeling solutions. These have to be clearly readable on the usually dark surfaces, remain legible at all times even under climatic and mechanical stress and not be lost. This serves the quality assurance of rubber products and their complete traceability.

Depending on the required properties of the rubber, there are many different rubber compounds. Accordingly, a great deal of material-specific expertise, specialized laser or inkjet technology and suitable pigmented inks are required for the gentle and high-contrast marking of rubber products. It is also important that the coding and marking systems and labeling solutions have suitable IT interfaces in order to integrate them into the digital production processes of the rubber industry.

Challenges in marking rubber surfaces

Many very different rubber compounds

Marking under harsh environmental conditions

Resistance to moisture, heat, cold and mechanical stress

Fast application in automated rubber production lines

Generation of machine-readable codes