Memory foam mattress is a kind of mattress that is made from polyurethane. Besides polyurethane, it is also made from other types of chemicals. The chemicals that are added to the mattress foams gives it the ability to increase in density. Memory foam mattress is also called visco elastic polyurethane foam. The mattress was developed in order to meet the demand of the mattress shoppers.
The history of the Memory Foam Mattress can be traced back to NASA's Ames Research Center. NASA's Ames Research Center funded a project to design a mattress foam that can help to relieve back pain of the astronauts caused by g-forces in the 1970s. NASA believed that the foam material should be used to conform to the shape of the body. Though creating a mold for the body can help to solve the problem, the person would eventually move out of the position. As a result, incorrect pressure points will be formed on the body. Later, the research team from NASA's Ames Research Center found a way to create a foam that can conform the the body's shape. It is a visco elastc foam that can evenly distribute the weight of the body to the foam surface.
The discovery caused Fagerdala World Foams of Sweden to experiment with it and sell it to the consumers. In 1991, Tempur Pedic, a company based in Sweden sold the research mattresss foam to the people in Sweden. After that, Tempur Pedic sold the memory mattress foam to the people that live in United States and Canada. Tempur Pedic's mattress became very popular. The success of Tempur Pedic had caused the manufacturers to create their own versions of memory foam mattresses and sell them to the local consumers.
Synthetic polyurethane foam material is used as the foam memory. The mattress manufacurers will add several types of chemicals to alter the density of the foam. After the chemical is added, the foam will have greater density. Besides, the manufacturer will add a visco elastic foam material. The visco elastic foam is non toxic. The foam weight is detemined by how much chemicals are used in the manufacturing process of the foam. Most memory foam mattress has a weight of 4 - 5lb. Lighter memory foam mattress weight in between 2 - 3 lb.
The quality of the mattress foam is measured by several factors including ILD raing, resiliency and etc. The Indentation Load Defelection (ILD) is a rating that is used to measure the hardness of the materla. Mattress with higher ILD rating are firmer. Mattressses with low ILD rating is able to reduce the pressure points. Despite that, mattresses that are too soft are not good for the body. The resilience rating is used to detemine how many rebound of a steel bound on the mattress. High resiliency indicates that the memory foam mattress is very durable. Expensive memory foam mattresses are made from a combination of the memory foam and lower high resilient layer. The lower high resilient layer and memory foam are able to reduce the pressure point and offer extra support for the lower part of he body.