A new method to glue the sole of rubber slippers with complicated surfaces

Abstract

Nowadays, people often wear shoes or slippers when going outside. Rubber slippers are very popular in the world, especially in tourist area. Rubber slippers can be easily seen at tropical countries such as Vietnam. A slipper consists of many layers, and they are glued and then pressed to ensure them not to be separated during retention period. In the past, the layers of slippers is glued by rollers because the surfaces of layers are flat and simple. However, the slippers are now improved and then the surfaces of layers become complicated and difficult to spread the glue. The surface is produced by curved faces matching with the foot. Therefore, the workers have to use a brush to spread the glue on the surfaces, especially the line of intersection of surfaces. The rollers are tried but the result is so bad because the glue cannot reach the intersection of two faces on the surface of the slipper. The places without the glue will make the slipper become failure after used. In this paper, although the rollers are also applied, the rotational speed of these rollers are different. The different speed helps the glue spread to be same as glued by hand. The number of rollers is determined by experiment. The ratio of rotational speed and the gap between two rollers are also showed by experiment to obtain a best result of the glue spread. All of the experimental data will be shown by graphs helping the readers to understand more clearly about the best parameters for machine operation. Results from this paper are foundation for designing a real gluing machine which helps shoe manufacturing industry to develop.