A metal part that has to be replaced every quarter because of wear, a rubber element that dries out over a season, a plastic unit that cracks on impact: for most workshops in Dnipro this is a daily reality. Cast polyurethane closes all three problems with one material: it wears 2-5 times slower than rubber, dampens impacts better than metal and is not afraid of oils or moisture. The TIMOL factory makes polyurethane products in Dnipro using open casting technology, to the customer’s drawing. Below I explain which parts are made from polyurethane, why it displaces rubber and metal, how to choose the hardness and what is needed to place an order at the factory.
Which polyurethane products are made at the factory
The factory produces a wide range of industrial parts from cast polyurethane, from wear-resistant wheels to thin seals. They all share one thing: they work where rubber wears out quickly and metal is too rigid or too heavy.
Typical items include wheels, rollers and tyres for transport and drive units, roll linings, cuffs, oil seals and damping rings for hydraulics, bushings and liners, shock-absorbing elements and vibration mounts, scrapers, protective plates and hopper linings. Open casting technology does not require an expensive pressure mould, so it is economically justified to make even complex profiles, flanges, grooves and seats for a specific drawing. You can review the ready sizes and product types in the catalogue, and parts to individual dimensions are reproduced by the factory from a sample or drawing.
TIMOL polyurethane works in 12 industries, among them mining, metallurgy, machine building, oil, railway, food, pulp and paper, printing, agriculture and port operations. For each industry a specific hardness and geometry are selected for the load.
Open casting technology here gives one more advantage besides economics. Since the polyurethane is poured into the mould without high pressure, no internal stresses typical of pressure casting arise in the body of the part, so massive parts do not warp or crack over time. This allows casting of parts of significant thickness and non-standard shape: hopper linings, large dampers, thick-walled bushings that are hard to make from sheet rubber or machine from metal. For a workshop this means even those units where welded metal structures or stacked rubber packs were used before can be switched to polyurethane.
Why polyurethane displaces rubber, metal and plastic
Polyurethane combines the strengths of three materials at once: wear resistance higher than rubber, impact toughness better than plastic and a lower weight than metal. This is exactly why workshops switch parts to polyurethane.
Against rubber the main argument is wear. The abrasion loss of cast polyurethane per DIN 53516 is 38-39 mm³, while SBR rubber reaches 100-200 mm³ and NBR up to 80-150 mm³. A polyurethane part lasts several times longer under the same abrasive. Against steel, polyurethane wins on weight and on the ability to dampen impact: its density is 1.05-1.25 g/cm³ against 7.7-7.9 g/cm³ for structural steel, meaning an identical part is 6-7 times lighter, does not corrode and does not transmit impact to the structure. Against rigid plastic, for example caprolon, polyurethane wins on elasticity and impact resistance, because caprolon is brittle and absorbs moisture.
A self-contained conclusion for a quick assessment: if a part is worn by abrasive, damaged on impact or corrodes in a metal version, switching to cast polyurethane extends the unit’s life and cuts downtime, keeping working geometry longer than rubber and metal.
There is also an acoustic effect that is often underestimated. Metal wheels, rollers and sprockets rumble over the bearing surface and transmit vibration to the whole structure, whereas a polyurethane layer dampens the impact at the moment of contact and noticeably lowers the noise level in the workshop. For food, printing and warehouse lines, where there are many manual operations next to equipment, this is not only a matter of comfort but also less load on fasteners and bearings, which otherwise fail from constant vibration.
Comparison of polyurethane with other materials in numbers
To assess the choice not in words but by characteristics, below are the reference values from standard tests for the materials most often replaced by polyurethane.
| Material | Abrasion (DIN 53516), mm³ | Working temperature, °C | Hardness | Density, g/cm³ | Oil resistance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Polyurethane (TIMOL) | 38-39 | -60…100 | 85A-95A | 1.05-1.25 | excellent |
| SBR rubber | 100-200 | -40…80 | 40A - 80A | 0.94-1.1 | low |
| NBR rubber | 80-150 | -30…100 | 40A - 90A | 1.0-1.3 | good |
| Caprolon (PA6/66) | 30-90 | -40…100 | 75D - 85D | 1.13-1.15 | good |
| Structural steel | n/a (not tested per DIN 53516) | -40…500 | 120-250 HB | 7.7-7.9 | not corrosion resistant |
The table shows why polyurethane became a universal replacement. On abrasion it is several times better than rubber and noticeably better than caprolon. On weight it is 6-7 times lighter than steel at a density of 1.05-1.25 g/cm³. The working range of -60 to +100 °C is wider than that of SBR rubber and sufficient for most industrial units. Where extreme temperature above +100 °C is needed, metal stays in its place, but in the zone of impact and abrasive loads polyurethane displaces it too.
When choosing hardness for a new part, focus on the role of the unit, not on the wish to make the item as hard as possible. Seals and dampers need softness in the 50-80 Shore A zone, loaded wheels and bushings need rigidity up to 70 Shore D. The same polyurethane at different hardness behaves like completely different materials, so this choice matters more than the grade.
How to order polyurethane products in Dnipro
The shortest path to a finished part is to give the factory a drawing or sample together with the unit’s operating conditions: load, speed, temperature, type of contact medium and the required hardness. From this data a process engineer selects the grade and hardness of the polyurethane, and production reproduces the geometry using open casting technology. If there is no ready drawing, the part is developed from an available sample.
The factory in Dnipro works with both serial batches and single items for a specific task. Read more about production capabilities in the Services section, and to get a quote for your drawing, get in touch via the Contacts page: describe the part and the operating mode, and the factory will prepare a technical proposal for your unit.
The location of production in Dnipro shortens the logistics arm for enterprises in the central and eastern regions: a sample or a worn part can be brought in person, and the finished order collected or shipped by carrier across Ukraine. This matters when a unit is idle and a replacement is needed quickly, not after months of waiting for an imported analogue. For an enterprise this format means a shorter repair cycle: less time passes from handing over the drawing to receiving the finished part than when ordering complex items abroad.