What is retro-reflective film?
Posted by Andy Hong on January 3rd, 2020
What is retro-reflective film?
What is retro-reflective film? There are two kinds of retro-reflective film, one is a glass bead reflective film. It is a kind of novel reflective material which combines the reflective layer formed by glass bead and PVC, PU and so on. The other is a micro prism reflective film. With the development of the society, the micro prism type reflective film has been widely used in daily life; the micro prism type reflective film is electroformed to form a micro prism reflective film working die; the working die hot embossing forms the prism matrix; the prism matrix layer and the other layers form the micro prism reflective film. For micro prism reflective film, the original mold is particularly important.
The safety protection products made of reflective materials can produce strong reflective effects under a certain light source, and provide the most effective and reliable security for pedestrians and night workers in the dark. Reflective film is a special structure of PVC film which can reflect light back to the light source by optical principle. It consists of a thin film layer with good weather resistance, tiny glass bead layer, focusing layer, reflective layer, viscose layer, and peeling layer.
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Characteristics of the retro-reflective film
The main quality identification points of the glass bead retro-reflective film: the material of the film, the reflection coefficient of the glass bead, the bead rate, the dead bead rate, the color uniformity, the weatherability, the stickiness of the adhesive layer and so on.
How does glass bead retro-reflective material work: glass bead retro-reflective material is the use of high refractive index glass microbeads to focus the incident light in a narrow light cone angle, and the surface of glass beads silver or aluminum plating as a back reflector, so that the light back to the light source of reverse reflexion prepared. It has a strong reverse reflection function and produces a bright visual reflection effect.
Compared with the glass bead type reflective film, the micro prism reflective film has the advantages of high brightness, good durability, and low material cost. At the same time, it overcomes the shortcomings of the small angle of effective incidence, a small angle of observation, and asymmetry of reflection beam, so it is used more and more widely in highway traffic which needs high brightness.
The reflective film is mainly used for guiding signs, signboards, airport safety cards, stage sets, land famous brands, license plates and so on.
Classification and application of retroreflective film
The grade of the retro-reflective film can be divided into diamond grade, super engineering grade, engineering-grade, economic grade, license plate grade and maritime grade (SOLAS reflective tape).
Engineering grade reflective film:
The performance of this series of reflective films belongs to the fourth level reflective film of the JT-T279-1995 standard issued by the Ministry of communications in the People's Republic of China. It is a durable sealed reflective film. Since the early 1950s, the material has been successfully used to make traffic signs. At present, the engineering level reflective film is still applied in areas with low traffic volume and low-speed driving.
The engineering grade reflective film is suitable for the traffic signs of general roads, namely, the usual grade one, two, three, four grade roads and temporary signs. Generally, it is divided into two kinds: pressure sensitive type and thermosensitive type. All kinds of patterns can be produced by screen printing with the same kind of ink.
Uses: guiding signs, prohibiting signs, warning signs and indicating signs, as well as signs for ordinary advertisements.
Life span: generally 3~7 years, according to the manufacturer's difference. Some manufacturers only provide the reflective film for 7 years, and the brightness retention value after 7 years is at least 50% of the initial brightness value. Some manufacturers provide reflective coatings for 3 years, 5 years and 7 years.
Suitable floor: aluminum plate and steel plate.
Operating temperature: generally required at 18 - 28 degrees centigrade.
Diamond grade reflective tape:
The performance of this series of reflective films belongs to the first and second JT-T279-1995 retro-reflective film issued by the Ministry of communications in the People's Republic of China. Its reflective principle is different from the glass bead reflection principle used in engineering and high-intensity reflective tape, but the latest technology of microcrystalline cube reflection.
Each microcrystal cube of a diamond reflective film is arranged and connected. After that, there will be more than 930 microcrystal cube corners in the area of a square centimeter. The lower layer of the microcrystalline cubic corner body is sealed to form an air layer, which makes the incident light from the internal full reflection, so the best reflective effect can be achieved without the use of the metal reflection layer. The diamond grade reflective tape made of high hardness and high hardness polycarbonate and microcrystalline cube technology is compared with the traditional engineering grade and high-intensity reflective film, and its reflective performance is not only multiplied but also the wide-angle performance is also greatly improved. The brightness of the diamond grade reflective tape is six times higher than that of the engineering-grade, and it is three times higher than that of the high strength grade.
Traffic signs suitable for high-grade highways and urban roads. Under the normal use condition, the brightness retention value of advertising material is at least 50% of the initial luminance value after 10 years. All kinds of patterns can be produced by screen printing with the same kind of ink.
Uses: guiding signs, prohibiting signs, warning signs and indicating signs, as well as signs for ordinary advertisements.
Life span: generally 10 years. Under the normal working condition, the brightness retention value of the reflective film is at least 50% of the initial brightness value after 10 years.
Suitable floor: aluminum plate and steel plate.
Operating temperature: generally required at 18 - 28 degrees centigrade.
High-intensity reflective tape:
The performance of this series of reflective films belongs to the JT-T279-1995 standard third level reflective film issued by the Ministry of communications of the People's Republic of China. The high-intensity reflective tape is a durable sealed reflective film, at least three times brighter than that of the engineering-grade reflective film. The material has been successfully used to make traffic signs. Even if the signs are in large angle and bright areas, the high-intensity reflective tape can make the signs clearly visible, and effectively predict the dangerous situation of the driver's road ahead.
The high-intensity reflective tape is suitable for the traffic signs of general roads, that is, the usual highway, level 1, two, three, four and temporary signs. Generally, it is divided into two kinds: pressure sensitive type and thermosensitive type. All kinds of patterns can be produced by screen printing with the same kind of ink.
Uses: guiding signs, prohibiting signs, warning signs and indicating signs, as well as signs for ordinary advertisements.
Life span: generally 10 years. Under the normal working condition, the brightness retention value of the reflective film is at least 80% of the initial brightness value after 10 years.
Suitable floor: aluminum plate and steel plate.
Operating temperature: generally required at 18 - 28 degrees centigrade.
The retro-reflective material for industrial use mainly refers to all kinds of the reflective film of five grade, diamond grade reflective film, high-intensity grade reflective film, engineering grade reflective film, advertising grade reflective film, and license plate reflective film. All kinds of reflective safety signs, vehicle signs, and safety facilities are used to make a clear warning function in the daytime. Under the condition of night or light, the bright reflection effect can effectively enhance the recognition ability of people, see the target and arouse the vigilance, thus avoid accidents, reduce casualties and reduce economic loss, It is an indispensable safety guard for road traffic. It has obvious social benefits.
The processing method of reflective film for microprism
There are mainly three ways of micro prism reflective array processing: pin cluster method, lamination method, and V groove cutting method.
Pin cluster method: three prisms (Figure 2.12) at both ends are equilateral triangles, and three pyramids are cut at the front end of the three prisms, and they are stitched together to form a prism array. Its advantage is that it can flexibly control the shape of the three pyramids in the front of the three prisms and make it easy to make various prism arrays of various styles; the drawback is that it is difficult to make a prism with small structure, and the pin cluster method is suitable for making large prism arrays.
Lamination method: this method is similar to the pin splicing method. This method is to overlap a plurality of parallel plates and cut out the V groove along the direction perpendicular to the plate so that the flat plate is formed at the top and bottom of the equidistance (Figure 2.13a). When splicing, the top of the plate is collinear with the bottom of another adjacent plate (Fig. 2.13b). After continuous splicing, a prism reflector array is formed. Although this method is not as flexible as pin splicing, the angle variation in structure is still large. The prism reflector array produced by this method is much more efficient than the pin splicing method. For this method, materials need to have good cutting performance, and it is not easy to warp when machining.
V groove cutting method: as shown in Figure 2.14, it cuts V grooves from three mutually oriented 60 degrees on the surface of the metal and other flat plates, thus forming micro prism array. The shape of the micro prism formed by the V groove cutting method is relatively simple. This method can make a hundred-micron prism reflective array. It is the most commonly used method in the processing of micron prism reflective array. Laser processing, flying cutting and precision grinding technology is used to process the microprism array based on this method. This method is based on this method to study the ultrasonic vibration planning process of the microprism array.
