In industries as diverse as automotive, medical, and furniture, manufacturers are turning to tape adhesives as replacements for traditional mechanical fasteners such as bolts, screws, and welds. The reason? Adhesive tapes have excellent bonding properties and lighter weight when compared to mechanical fasteners – and they provide an exact fit that remains stable over time, where mechanical fasteners introduce the risk of improper fits due to machining tolerances or component deformation and wear.

But joining two parts with a tape adhesive has its challenges as well. The surfaces to be bonded must first be treated with an adhesion promoter. The adhesion promoter is more than just a cleaner – it also preps the surfaces, altering their chemical and physical properties to ensure the adhesive tape works to its maximum effect. Adhesion promoters also protect the bonded site against factors that could undermine the adhesive’s strength.

Much has been said about the Internet of Things—the revolutionary technological advances that allow for things like smart refrigerators and televisions that can anticipate what shows you might like watching. That’s all due to interconnectivity of devices with cloud-based servers and services that analyze your choices.

So, that smart refrigerator can scan the contents and make recommendations to you via text prompts or simple verbal cues—or, it can scan the contents and “tell” you when you’re running low on milk. Likewise, linkages to online shopping portals can automatically order what your household is running low on, making for a Jetsons-like home and utmost convenience.

While these are consumer-facing advances, there are other things going on behind the scenes. Engineers can, for example, see if features on consumer appliances are rarely used, or used in ways not intended. Then, they can use that information to determine if design upgrades or overhauls are required.

It’s been quite a year at Designetics: We’ve grown and expanded our reach, covering the globe with new innovations and serving a wide variety of industries.

Each quarter, we sit down with a Designetics innovator to talk about his or her career, what makes Designetics special and topics relevant to his or her field. This month: Technical Manager Mark Moll.

In recent years, more manufacturers have avoided fastening components together with bolts, welds or screws and have embraced the use of sealants and adhesives, owing to the superior adhesion properties and the need for exacting fits. That’s why the sealant and adhesive industry is expecting robust growth; globally, the marketplace is expected to have a compound annual growth rate of 5.6 percent through 2025.