Thermoplastics ‘bowl over’ the world of cricket

A. Schulman, an international supplier of high-performance plastic compounds, powders and resins, has developed a PC/ABS compound to replace fibreglass in professional cricket helmets.

A. Schulman’s Perrite division’s Ronfalin C PC/ABS is the first thermoplastic material to replace fibreglass for use in sport goods. Perrite’s Ronfalin C is used instead of glass fibre in the shell of the professional Masuri cricket helmets.

“Masuri, the creator of the most widely used professional cricket helmets, approached us with the challenge of developing a “next generation” helmet,” explained Tim Combes, General Manager of Hampshire-based B M Injection, a technical moulder and tool maker.

“Masuri wanted the new helmet to use the principals of their proven double skin, fibre glass and polyurethane foam sandwich construction. We contacted Perrite, our long-term supplier of engineered materials, knowing that their technical teams could propose the right material to meet these challenging requirements.“

“One of Masuri’s wishes was to design a helmet which would exploit the impact and shock absorbing properties of our C PC/ABS material to produce a light weight, protective helmet,” said Heinrich Lingnau, “In fact, each component of the helmet was carefully designed using a material which could guarantee the maximum protection of the players.”

In addition to the material used for the helmet’s shell, A. Schulman provided BM Injection with the glass filled polyamide for the rim. “This is colour matched to the four colours of the helmet’s cloth layer in navy blue, maroon, dark green and black. Originally, we purchased the nylon in natural and tried to masterbatch ourselves. However, being glass filled nylon, we really struggled to achieve a good consistent colour match of the rim to the cloth,” explained Combes. “We asked Perrite to help us and they now offer a colour compounded glass filled nylon grade which has significantly reduced our waste.”

The result of the teamwork between the raw material producer, B M Injection and Masuri was a product, which according to the users, looks and feels even better than the original helmet.