Fire Safety: Essential Flame-Resistant Coatings and Materials
Capabilities In
Flexible Engineered Materials
Duracote develops and manufactures flexible engineered materials for the aerospace, automotive, ESD/Clean Room, and architectural industries. We work alongside engineers, product designers, and procurement teams to translate performance requirements into manufacturable material systems, from initial concept through production-scale supply.
How Duracote Develops Material Solutions
Every project starts with a customer specification or market opportunity. From there, our work falls into
one of three paths, depending on how close the requirement sits to something we already produce.
Proven Product Platforms
When an existing Duracote material meets the specification, we move directly to qualification and supply.
These platforms are already validated for fire resistance, acoustic performance, thermal protection, and
other demanding applications.
Developmental Material Platforms
When the requirement calls for modifying an existing platform, our engineers adjust the formulation, coating
chemistry, or laminate construction to meet the new performance target. This shortens development time while
keeping the material grounded in proven technology.
New Product Development
When the specification has no existing precedent, Duracote’s Technical Team performs analysis, sourcing, and
laboratory work to determine the correct raw materials and process to meet the provided specification. It
pairs customer engineering teams with our chemists, formulators, and process engineers to create new
compositions and validate them through iterative testing.
Core Capabilities
Six in-house capabilities form the foundation of our work. Each is available on a custom or contract
basis.
UV Coatings
- Capabilities
- B-Stage or fully cured coatings
- Up to 60″ wide
- Properties & Applications
- Interior or exterior surfaces
- High or low pressure laminate systems
- Anti-scratch, scuff, stain, fingerprint, and chemical resistance
Water-based &
Plastisol Coatings
-
Capabilities
- Knife-over, gravure, dip, and reverse-roll
- Up to 60″ wide
-
Properties & Applications
- Flame retardancy and resistance
- Acoustics
- Electrostatic dissipation
- Abrasion resistance
- Slip resistance
Laminating
-
Capabilities
- Films, fabrics, felts, adhesives, and foams
- Up to 80″ wide
-
Properties & Applications
- Pressure-sensitive adhesives
- Emboss
- Interior and exterior materials
Compounding
- Milling, shearing, and deaeration
- Single-drum to large vat batch sizes
- Water or solvent-based
- Custom color matching
- Tailor-made development
Technical Service
-
Testing Capabilities
- Flammability
- Abrasion
- Burst and Hydrostatic Mullen
- Puncture
- Tensile Strength
- Coefficient of Friction
- Electrostatic Dissipation
- Heat & Cold Resistance
-
Development Standards
- Vertical Burn – FAR 25.853(a)
- Radiant Panel – FAR 25.865(a)
- OSU 65/65 Heat Release
- Smoke and Toxicity
- Antimicrobial
- Hydrophobicity
- Anti-scuff, scratch, & stain
- BMS, LAC, and STM aviation standards
Tolling
- Toll coating
- Toll laminating
- Toll compounding
Materials Expertise
A flexible engineered material is rarely a single substance. It is a stack of components selected for how they work together: a film for barrier performance, a foam for acoustic absorption, a coating for surface durability, and an adhesive to hold the construction stable across temperature and flex cycles.
Duracote works across a wide set of input materials, including:
- Films for moisture, chemical, and gas barrier performance
- Foils for thermal reflectivity and EMI shielding
- Foams for acoustic attenuation, cushioning, and thermal insulation
- Nonwovens for reinforcement, absorbency, and structural loft
- Coatings for fire resistance, abrasion resistance, antimicrobial properties, and static dissipation
- Adhesives for bonding dissimilar layers under thermal and mechanical stress
Selecting the right combination is where material engineering decisions are made. Our chemists and process engineers evaluate how each layer contributes to the final performance profile, then validate the construction against the application’s regulatory and functional requirements.
Manufacturing Capabilities
Duracote operates compounding, coating, laminating, and UV curing equipment under one roof in Ravenna, Ohio. That means a material that requires custom compounding, a precision coating pass, and a multi-layer lamination can be produced as a single workflow rather than handed off to multiple vendors.
Our production environment supports work at multiple scales:
- Prototyping: Small-batch compounding and coating runs for early-stage development, with rapid iteration on formulation and construction.
- Pilot Production: Mid-volume runs for qualification testing, regulatory submission, and first-article inspection.
- Production Supply: Sustained manufacturing of qualified materials with documented process controls and traceability appropriate for aerospace and regulated industries.
Quality systems are aligned to AS9100 Rev D, supporting customers in aviation, defense, and other certified supply environments.
Research & Innovation
New material development at Duracote is collaborative.
Customers bring the application requirement, the regulatory context, and often a target performance that has no off-the-shelf answer. We bring formulation chemistry, coating, and laminating process knowledge and decades of experience with how flexible materials behave in the field.
Through Duracote’s new product development process, project teams move through a defined sequence: requirement definition, candidate formulation, sample production, performance testing, and iteration. Customers retain visibility into the work at each stage, and intellectual property arrangements are established up front.
Once a material meets specifications, it can be manufactured at the volumes the customer needs, and is documented well enough to qualify for regulated programs.
Frequently Asked Questions About Duracote Flexible Engineered Material Solutions
Can we send our own substrate or formulation for Duracote to coat or laminate?
Yes. Tolling work is a regular part of our business. Customers supply substrates, base films, or proprietary formulations, and we run them through our coating, laminating, or compounding equipment under the agreed process parameters. Confidentiality agreements are standard.
How does Duracote handle intellectual property on custom development work?
IP terms are established before development begins. Depending on the project, customers may retain full ownership of resulting formulations, share rights with Duracote, or license a Duracote-developed material under defined terms. We work through this in writing at project initiation so there are no ambiguities later.
What are typical minimum order quantities and lead times?
Both vary by product and process. Catalog materials from proven product platforms generally have shorter lead times and lower minimums than custom developmental work. Prototype quantities are available for qualification and testing. Our sales engineers will provide specifics once the material and volume are defined.
Let’s Discuss Your Project
If you have a specification, a performance gap, or an early-stage material concept, our engineering team is available to review it. We work with engineers on technical fit, with product designers on what is achievable within a given construction, and with procurement teams on qualification, sourcing, and supply continuity.
