What acrylic sheet we produce?
MDE Plastics Company offers a series of acrylic sheets products: extruded acrylic sheets, cast acrylic sheets, patterned acrylic sheets, and rainbow acrylic sheets. We have a variety of colors and thickness for options. We have high gloss surface acrylic sheets, as well as matte and textured surface. We wholesale bulk sheets with normal big size, and we also provide cut-to-size service. Besides, we can lase cut, bend, print, polish, assembly and bond acrylic projects. You are welcome to contact us with your specifications and ideas.
Featured Products
We offer extruded acrylic sheets with a variety thickness and colors. Our sheets feature excellent thickness tolerance, weather resistant, hard wearing and best price.
Thickness range: 1-12mm Size: 1.22×2.44m
Color available: Transparent, White, Black, Red, Blue, Yellow and others
Custom Fabrication: Cut-to-Size, CNC Routing, UV Printing, Screen Printing, Laser Cutting, Line Bending, Edge Polishing, Assembly, Bonding and etc.
Compared with extruded acrylic plastic sheet, our cast acrylic sheets have higher service temperature and higher molecular weight, and have better gluing and laser cutting effective and performance.
Thickness range: 2-300mm Size: 1.23×2.43m
Color available: Transparent, White, Black, Red, Blue, Yellow and others
Custom Fabrication: Cut-to-Size, CNC Routing, UV Printing, Screen Printing, Laser Cutting, Edge Polishing, Assembly, Bonding and etc.
Our unique texture and pattern on acrylic plastic sheets add depth and uniqueness to any projects, such as cabinets, partitions, patio tables, lighting, store fixtures, furniture, point of purchase displays, signage and so on.
Thickness range: 1-10mm Size: 1.22×2.44m
Textured Available: square, tripe, irregular, rib, grain and so on
Custom Fabrication: Cut-to-Size, CNC Routing, UV Printing, Screen Printing, Laser Cutting, Edge Polishing, Assembly, Bonding and etc.
Rainbow acrylic sheets have a special surface color. With absence of lighting, the surface is somewhat purple. With lighting increase, these sheets surface have gradual change effect. They are quite suitable for decoration, lighting and so on.
Thickness range: 1-8mm Size: 1.22×2.44m
Color Available: color gradient
Custom Fabrication: Cut-to-Size, CNC Routing, UV Printing, Screen Printing, Laser Cutting, Edge Polishing, Assembly, Bonding and etc.
What is acrylic plastic sheet?
Definition of acrylic plastic sheet
Acrylic sheet, also namely, plexiglass or polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), is a type of high molecular thermoplastic sheet. It is clear, transparent, or has color. It features high transparency, chemical stability, and weather resistance. It is easy to dye, and process.
Features of plexiglass plastic sheet
Acrylic sheet mechanical features
- It has lower density than glass. It has density of 1.15-1.19g/cm³, about half than glass and 43% of aluminum. It has deformation temperature 76-116℃, molding shrinkage 0.2-0.8%.
- PMMA plastic sheet has quite high mechanical strength. It has almost 2 million relative molecular. PMMA has long-chain polymer. And the chain is very soft. This help PMMA sheet has high strength. It has tensile and impact resist ability 7 to 18 times higher than ordinary glass.
- Acrylic sheet has melting temperature of 130-140°C (265-285°F), much lower than that of glass.
- Acrylic sheet has great transparency, with transmittance rate reaching 92%, higher than that of glass.
- PMMA glass transition temperature is around 105°C.
- PMMA sheet has excellent weathering resistance. In a 4 years of natural aging test, weight of the samples changes slightly. And its tensile strength and light transmittance decreased slightly. Its color is slightly yellowed. Obviously, the impact strength is slightly improved, and other physical properties are almost unchanged.
- PMMA sheet has good comprehensive mechanical properties. It ranks in the forefront of general-purpose plastics. It has great tensile, bending, and compressive strengths, higher than those of polyolefins, polystyrene and polyvinyl chloride. Although, its impact toughness is poor, it is slightly better than polystyrene. Cast acrylic sheet has even better strength. It can even reach the level of engineering plastics such as polyamide and polycarbonate.
Acrylic sheet chemical features
- Due to larger branching, PMMA has a higher viscosity. It is suitable to a slower processing speed when using thermal processing methods.
- Cyanoacrylate, dichloromethane or chloroform can all dissolve the plexiglass slightly. They can help bond two pieces of plexiglass together firmly.
- It takes about 2 kg of oil to produce around 1 kg of PMMA.
- PMMA sheet is easy to burn, with a limiting oxygen index of only 17.3.
- With oxygen, PMMA starts to burn at 458°C. This will produce carbon dioxide, water, carbon monoxide and some low-molecular-weight compounds including formaldehyde.
- PMMA sheet has good resistance to gases such as ozone and sulfur dioxide.
Acrylic plastic sheet production
There are mainly two production methods of producing acrylic sheet.
Extruding acrylic/PMMA plastic sheet
It is produced by extruding machine. Compared with cast sheet, it has lower molecular weight. It is slightly weaker in mechanical properties. And it has higher flexibility. However, this feature helps reduce shorter softening time, during bending and thermoforming. This would be quite beneficial to various large-size rapid vacuum forming.
Furthermore, the thickness tolerance of extruded acrylic sheet is smaller than that of cast sheet. Due to large-scale automatic production of extruded sheets, color and specifications are inconvenient to adjust. Therefore, its variety of product specifications is limited to a certain extent.
Casting acrylic/PMMA plastic sheet
Cast acrylic sheet has higher molecular weight, excellent stiffness, strength, and chemical resistance. Therefore, it is more suitable for processing large-sized logo plaques. It has longer softening time. Casting is suitable for small batch processing. It has outstanding flexibility in color and surface texture options. And its specifications is more diversified.
During casting, acrylic sheet realize complete structural polymerization. And some ultraviolet absorber is added. It has extremely high strength and UV function, quite suitable for outdoor use. Its outdoor service life reaches more than 5 years or even 10 years. And its color remains bright and new during use.
Acrylic plastic sheet machining, fabrication and molding
Acrylic sheet has good mechanical fabrication capability. It is suitable for CNC routing, laser cutting, thermal bending, vacuum forming, polishing, assembly, bonding, UV printing.
- Acrylic sheet CNC machining, lasering, engraving
- Acrylic sheet Bonding
- Acrylic sheet Bending and thermoforming
Q&A about acrylic plastic sheet
Acrylic sheet is also called plexiglass or PMMA sheet. It has great transparency and mechanical ability.
Acrylic sheet is a type of popular plastics, used in outdoor advertisement signs, display, dome, lighting, buildings, vehicles, and so on.
Acrylic sheet is mostly clear and transparent. It is quite similar to polyacrylate sheet. However, it has less strength and more easy to crack. However, it has better performance than clear polystyrene sheet, in terms of strength.
Normally, acrylic sheet is cheaper than PC sheet, and ABS plastic sheet, and more expensive than polystyrene sheet. Cast acrylic sheet is more expensive than extruded plastic sheet.
Yes, like other plastic sheet, acrylic sheet is waterproof. They can be used at home, office and sometimes outdoors.
Extruded acrylic sheet and cast acrylic sheet.
Acrylic sheet has better transparency. It is more eco-friendly.
Yes. Under sunshine, within a certain period of use, acrylic sheet will age and turn yellowish.
Generally speaking, acrylic sheet is more expensive than glass sheet.
Acrylic sheet is not easy to shatter or crack, compared with glass sheet.
Compared with glass sheet, acrylic sheet is more easy to scratch.