Silicone Rubber Unseen: Where Does it Lurk?

If we asked you to look around your home to find some silicone rubber items, you could probably find a few quite quickly. Keen cooks are likely to have some silicone rubber cookware, for example, along with a pastry brush or two. You’ll also find it used in items as diverse as footwear to the coating on wires and similar items.

Yet there are many instances where you cannot see the silicone rubber parts being used. Here are a few examples.

Automotive uses

You can find plenty of silicone rubber parts inside the average car or similar vehicle. The most obvious example is a gasket. There are plenty of these in a vehicle, working to keep certain parts separate from each other. They seal joints and provide cushioning between the parts. If they weren’t there, various parts would leak or become too hot to work against each other. And standard rubber doesn’t have the properties seen in silicone rubber gaskets, so this is the ideal solution to keep everything working smoothly.

Electronics

There are all kinds of reasons to use silicone rubber in electrical items as well. You may know that the rubber displays all kinds of properties, such as being waterproof, resistant to extreme temperatures, and so on.

Electronic items are obviously fragile in a sense, and so they must use the correct protective rubber items to preserve the components in use. Insulation, protection, and other roles can all be served by the right items – all made from silicone rubber. You may not be able to see them in action, but your electrical item is going to work well and for longer thanks to them being in place.

Aerospace

We can return to the example of gaskets in this industry, where safety is arguably even more important than it is on the road. No one wants something to fail while thousands of feet in the air.

However, gaskets are just the beginning. There are many other uses for silicone rubber, as we’ll see. Temperatures are going to vary more widely while airborne compared to those on the ground, and those experienced on road journeys. So, installing proper and reliable seals for doors, windows, and other parts of the plane is vital. The insulation properties of silicone rubber are also crucial given those extremes of temperature. You might well be surprised at how many places you could find this type of rubber on a plane if you could look and take everything apart.

So, we can see there are many important uses of silicone rubber that do not rely on them being in sight. Indeed, in many cases, you wouldn’t even be aware of it, yet it is still doing its job in whatever form it exists in.

And that is one of the most powerful things we can learn about silicone rubber. Its versatility is the most important thing it can offer since this affects so many areas and features. It’s all around you… you just may not always know where.