All the fun of the fair without the bruises: Baykomm

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All the fun of the fair without the bruises

Anyone who has ever ridden in a bumper car will recall encounters with the hard seats and even harder steering wheels that these vehicles have. To ensure visits to the fair are as painless as possible in this respect, the Italian company Bertazzon 3B srl, Sernaglia della Battaglia, supplies its bumper cars with steering wheels whose metal interior is sheathed in the soft and elastic polyurethane integral skin foam Bayflex®. The seats and cushioning inside these vehicles are also made of this material.

Soft integral skin foams make bumper cars safer - and durable.

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Soft integral skin foams make bumper cars safer – and durable.

Bumper cars continue to be one of the main crowd-pullers at fairgrounds throughout the world despite all the new high-tech attractions. Most visitors have one thing in common – they want to enjoy themselves, and not worry too much how they treat the vehicles they are driving.

The materials used for the mini racing cars need to be sufficiently safe and robust. For this reason, Bertazzon, one of Italy’s best known bumper car manufacturers, has for years preferred seats made of integral skin Bayflex®.

The polyurethane components, which are integrated into a chassis of hot-dip galvanized steel and a colorful polyester bodywork, are produced by Italian polyurethane specialist Mobiespans srl, S. Polo di Piave, whose positive experience with the material goes back many years. “Apart from the safety features and comfort afforded to passengers, decisive factors in choosing this elastic integral skin polyurethane foam were the high abrasion resistance and tensile strength it exhibits even at low temperatures. Resistance to chemicals and weathering were also major items on Bertazzon engineers’ list of requirements,” says Sandro Simonetto, who advises Italian Bayflex® customers on technical issues.

Even with hundreds of people hurriedly getting in and out of the bumper cars in the summer heat or at a cool, rainy fall fair, the seats should naturally still look presentable even after many years. After all, operators expect a service life of 10 to 20 years. And – drivers, big and small, lose ice creams, fries, and other fairground treats in collisions. None of this should leave any marks on the seats. “Seats made with the robust, yet elastic polyurethane integral skin foam Bayflex® are clearly superior to their textile cousins. They need much less maintenance and withstand even aggressive cleaning agents. They are undeniably more cost-effective thanks to their longer service life at comparable production cost,” says Simonetto.

But the manufacturer benefits too. The complex-shaped concave seat-armrest combination, approx. 1,100 mm wide, 700 mm high and with a comparable seat depth, is produced in a single operation in economical epoxy resin molds. This also provides good reproduction of fine surface details. Extra stability is ensured by sheets made of fiberglass reinforced plastic which are simply placed in the mold and then – as with the metal steering wheel insert – covered by the liquid polyurethane components. Lastly, metal threaded bushings and posts also encased in foam simplify the subsequent final assembly work.

For further information visit: www.italintl.com/3b/