The Company

A multinational corporation footwear company headquartered in Germany, having manufacturing facility in Nellore, A.P India. That designs and manufactures shoes, clothing and accessories. It is the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe, and the second largest in the world.

The Challenge

Peeling off issues were reported withTPU (Thermoplastic polyurethane) material, for which the following was required by client.

Consultation requested to NRPL: We would request you evaluate following

• Evaluate the physical variations of surface roughness/ Surface Morphology of TPU.
• Evaluate the chemical variations of oil painting and TPU.

The Solution

NRPL is serving footwear industry more than 10 years, using its decades of experience in evaluating Surface Morphology using instrumental applications like AFM (Atomic force microscopy),  SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy), Chemical Compositions can be evaluated using EDX/EDS (Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy) with highly qualified Experts. NRPL is providing services & support and advice to footwear industry and research institutes based on experience.

NRPL has taken the challenge, successfully investigated, & identified the problem. Initially we have evaluated surface morphology using SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy) and observed that SEM is not as efficient in resolving the subtle changes on a highly smooth surface. With images generated by SEM, would be difficult to determine the slopes of a surface. Conversely, AFM provides height information, making it easy to determine if surface features on a thin film are rising or falling. Later we have evaluated AFM (Atomic force microscopy) & we have used EDX/EDS (Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy) for evaluating chemical composition. We have observed the changes in surface morphology of controlled and failure samples. We have also observed morphological changes of both samples (controlled and failure), henceforth we have concluded the reasons for Peeling off issues with TPU.

A Prototype Image generated by AFM (Atomic force microscopy) for surface topography.

A Prototype Image generated by SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy) of cross section surface