Every hour a food processing line runs, its wear surfaces are fighting friction, moisture, and the clock. Guide rails score. Scrapers dull. Stainless chutes corrode at the weld seams. TIVAR® UHMW-PE was built to take that fight off metal's plate.
Emco Industrial Plastics fabricates TIVAR® UHMW-PE into the wear parts that keep processing lines moving. Such as guide rails, scraper blades, chute liners, sprockets, and star wheels. All cut, machined, and finished to the equipment drawings our food and beverage customers already run on.
Stainless steel is the default in food processing for a reason. It's strong and it's cleanable. But it isn't frictionless, and it isn't immune to wear. Metal-on-metal and metal-on-product contact points generate noise, gall over time, and often need constant lubrication that itself becomes a contamination risk in a food-contact environment. Corrosion at welds and fasteners creates crevices where bacteria can take hold, and repeated washdown cycles accelerate all of it.
TIVAR® UHMW-PE food-grade sheet and rod is manufactured to (cite index="4-1">meet FDA, USDA, and 3-A Dairy Sanitation guidelines for food processing and handling, and specific grades add EU 10/2011 compliance for global lines. That compliance is the entry ticket, the performance is what keeps it installed. TIVAR® grades are engineered for (cite index="2-1">superior wear resistance, zero moisture absorption, and reliable welding and machining characteristics, which is exactly what a washdown-heavy environment demands: no water uptake to harbor bacteria, and a surface that keeps performing after thousands of cleaning cycles.
The friction advantage is measurable. TIVAR® HPV, a grade purpose-built for conveyor wear strips, delivers an (cite index="10-1">80% reduction in coefficient of friction compared to POM-C and offers (cite index="10-1">18–35% higher limiting pressure velocity values than competing dry-lubricant materials meaning less drive load, less belt wear, and a quieter line, without adding external lubricant to a food-contact zone.
The comparison isn't about replacing all metal in a plant. Frames and structural components stay stainless. It's about the high-friction, high-wear contact points where a self-lubricating polymer outperforms bare metal, and where zero moisture absorption matters more than raw hardness.
TIVAR® isn't one material. It's a family of food-grade UHMW-PE compounds, each tuned for a different failure mode on the line:
| Grade | Best for | Why it's specified |
|---|---|---|
| TIVAR® 1000 FG | Bearings, bushings, sprockets, guides | (cite index="7-1">Well-balanced wear and corrosion resistance with a low-friction surface and excellent impact strength |
| TIVAR® DS FG | High-wear replacement parts | (cite index="8-1">Superior wear and abrasion resistance over standard TIVAR® 1000, same FDA/EU compliance |
| TIVAR® H.O.T. FG | Washdown-heavy dairy, bakery, poultry lines | (cite index="5-1">Holds performance at operating temperatures up to 135°C (275°F) where frequent hot washdowns shorten standard part life |
| TIVAR® HPV FG | High-speed conveyor wear strips | (cite index="10-1">80% lower coefficient of friction than POM-C with a built-in dry lubricant for noise reduction |
| TIVAR® VMX FG | Parts near metal detection / X-ray | (cite index="1-1">Visual, X-ray, and metal-detectable formulation so a broken fragment is caught before it reaches product |
If a line is running hot, loud, or through more wear parts than it should, the fix is usually smaller than a capital project. It's the right polymer in the right spot. Emco's team can review your current wear-part drawings and recommend the TIVAR® grade that matches your washdown chemistry, temperature, and detection requirements.
Send us your wear-part prints or a sample of the part that's failing. We'll recommend a TIVAR® grade and turn it into a finished component.
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