Hottest plastics and automotive innovative technol

Plastic and automotive innovative technology

automobile manufacturers' total lithium battery cathode material has little pull on the consumption demand of lithium carbonate, hoping to accurately assemble all parts of the car, reduce the processing and assembly processes, and control the weight of the car. These aspirations have been embodied and met in the new technologies for entering the finals of the 32nd American Society of plastic engineers automotive design innovation competition. Among the 20 technologies that entered the finals, five highly innovative technological achievements won the final award. The 16 judges of the competition are composed of consultants, university professors and a retired manager of an automobile company from magazines such as plastics, automobile and design

among the five award-winning technologies this year, two are about the application of paint free technology to automotive body panels. Two other awards were awarded for the application of carbon fiber in the chassis structure of automobiles. This groundbreaking technology has been long awaited by the industry. These four award-winning technologies show that long fiber reinforced thermoplastics play an increasingly prominent role in the preparation of automotive internal and external components. Another two technological achievements worth mentioning are the application of blow molding in the manufacture of automotive internal parts, and the first fully thermoplastic front-end support component directly coated with electrophoretic paint

bid farewell to the old paint

at present, automobile and other product manufacturers are increasingly concerned about the formable "dry paint film" and avoid the cumbersome and high-cost painting process. This dry paint film is a plastic film, and the coating stretched on the film can maintain its integrity during thermal processing. Usually, this kind of formed paint film is used as the outer liner of automobile parts, and then the molten resin is injected into the lower layer of the paint film as a support by injection molding. In some cases, the paint film can be directly hot-melt and injected into auto parts

dry paint film is gradually applied to larger and larger parts. The Chevrolet "pioneer" north face version launched by General Motors in 2003 may have the largest application area of paint film at present, with a length of 6.5 feet. It is reported that since the dry paint film was used for car body decoration, this is the first time that such a high finish car body color has been obtained. This technology won the innovation award of external components

this paint film is produced by soliant LLC, which was merged by Eric green industries in August. This four-layer fluorine-containing film is composed of thermoformable masking film (spalling after molding), Teflon transparent coating, decorative coating and tackifying coating/undercoat. The primer is a layer of 150 mil TPO film, which is extruded and rolled into a paint film using spartech's thermoplastic. All parts are thermoformed and CNC trimmed by Michigan stac PAC Co., Ltd

in the past, it was difficult to form TPO materials because of their low melt strength, but now large thermoformed parts are becoming more and more common, thanks to improved raw materials and production processes. Equistar chemical has specially upgraded the TPO reactor flexathene PD 951 to suit this application. This customization ensures that this film can stretch 300% during the molding process. TPO must also have good melt strength (determined by the high molecular weight polypropylene matrix), low linear thermal expansion coefficient, plus appropriate hardness, low temperature effect (this extrusion level makes the film remain ductile at minus 20 to 30 ℃, while the TPO formed by injection molding is at least minus 5 ℃)

in the field of automobile manufacturing, it is more suitable to adopt thermal forming treatment than injection molding method, because the production output of automobile is relatively low, and the production cycle of primary parts is short, which can be completed in three to four weeks, and then the finishing processing only takes eight weeks. After the paint cost is reduced, it can reduce the total cost by 7% - 10%. These data are provided by Edward Crowe, the technical director of Carlisle machinery manufacturing company in Ohio, which provides engineering support and process management services. Edward Crowe also believes that dry paint film has better weather resistance, chemical resistance and cutting resistance than paint. Since the sheet waste can be reground and added to the TPO primer, it can be recycled

at the same time, mayco Plastics Co., Ltd. has developed a new non coating technology. It is reported that its use cost is lower than that of dry paint film, so this technology is more suitable for complex tensile parts, such as buffer dashboard. This film was jointly developed by mayco, DaimlerChrysler and two raw material suppliers, and DaimlerChrysler enjoys the patent right. Mayco extruded glossy decorative film, after heat treatment and molding, it was placed in the injection molding machine and the molten raw material was injected into the back of the film

mayco won the SPE Award for its practical application of color plastic film. The Dodge Neon model launched by DaimlerChrysler company in 2002, its front dashboard uses mayco's mic film and PP plastic injection molding as the substrate of the film, so it won the processing technology progress award. Mayco said that this paint film has a very prominent advantage, that is, it can coordinate with the metal color of the car body. When the paint film is prepared by extrusion die, some special factors make the film produce metallic luster

mic film has a class a surface finish, which is in harmony with the color, freshness and gloss of body paint, and its scratch resistance and collision resistance are better than that of paint. Compared with paint, each car dashboard saves $5 to $15. Mayco and DaimlerChrysler believe that this technology has broad prospects in the manufacture of internal and external devices. In 2003, neon vehicles will continue to use mic films on the front and rear instrument panels. With further development, MIC film can also be used in the decoration of all automotive parts, including SMC, rim, SRIM and other composite parts. Some films can also be extruded and directly thermoformed into smooth parts. Mayco plans to introduce this film into other film presses, thermoforming machines, pre cut sheets, prefabricated shells and other equipment

the four layer mic film is based on a new type of UV resistant ionic cross-linked polymer fi-311301u-01. This polymer was developed by hulman and has good transparency, coloring power and endurance. The top layer of MIC film is the film formed by this material, which is about 5-6 mils, and below it is a 30 mils decorative ion layer, with a tensile limit of 300%. Next is the adhesive tape coating, which is jointly developed by Schulman and ExxonMobil Chemical Company. The bottom layer is the copolymer film made of pp7032e2 produced by ExxonMobil Chemical Company. The primer used in spray molding is ExxonMobil Chemical pp8074 copolymer

an epoch-making new material carbon fiber

it was predicted decades ago that carbon fiber composites will replace metals and be used in the manufacture of automobile chassis. This prediction is gradually being realized. At present, it is used in the manufacture of some sports car chassis. The winning technology of chassis/hardware/assembly in this SPE competition is the carbon fiber baffle support system used in dosge Viper sports car launched by DaimlerChrysler company in 2003. This technology is the first application of carbon fiber in large chassis and body external components. In the past, only racing cars or other special models used carbon fiber on the large body structure

the large structure referred to here is the left and right baffle brackets, which extend from the windshield to the headlights. The carbon fiber baffle bracket used by dosge Viper sports car weighs 4.25 pounds each. China's real economy has come to this day. Vinyl SMC is mixed with 55% carbon fiber debris. Due to the absence of glass and other fillers, the proportion of new materials is small, only 1.4, while the proportion of standard SMC is 1.9. The same material can also be used on two smaller brackets and two headlight brackets, thus forming a complete baffle bracket system

these four composite parts weigh a total of 13.5 pounds. Due to the use of 15 to 20 less metal parts, the weight is reduced by 40 pounds. Although the thin wall of SMC is only 2mm, it can support the front end of the whole car body, and 34 parts are connected here, with the rigidity increased by 22%

I don't think I can finish the raw materials in a lifetime. Qmc8590 of quantum composite company is compressed by meridian automotive system. The application of carbon fiber composites in automobiles also won the innovation award of materials. Another cf-smc material weighing about 2 pounds is used around the integrated A-pillar and windshield. Although the award-winning innovation meets the requirements of stress corrosion cracking resistance, it is the thin plate inside the SMC door. The main part of this sheet is low-density glass fiber SMC. In order to enhance the hardness of the end of the door shaft, 1 pound of qmc-8590 of quantum is added to the cf-smc, which adds up to 17.5 pounds of cf-smc for each vehicle

what is very innovative is that DaimlerChrysler developed a cross-linking composite method to mix carbon fiber and glass fiber. After testing the composite sequence of cf-smc and gf-smc materials, the company designed a reasonable structure, connecting the two ends of cf-smc with two gf-smcs, and assembled a mortise joint structure with a length of 4 inches. This technology can reduce the size of steel hinge reinforcement devices, reduce weight, and enhance hardness. The initiator of DaimlerChrysler said, "the next innovation will be to use CF material to produce A-class body surface."

innovation of blow molding technology

a new application technology of blow molding has won the interior innovation award. Kautex Textron manufactured the first blow molded speaker assembly, which was applied to DaimlerChrysler's 2003 new Jeep "Wrangler". The loudspeaker and suspended ceiling lamp adopt an integral shell, and two rivets are embedded on the roll stabilizer bar. Its manufacturing material is black UV resistant PP polypropylene containing 20% glass fiber provided by sparten Polycom. The gloss of this material is very low, about 2.3 or even lower, which was previously considered difficult to achieve. This material still has good toughness at low temperature, and the performance of anti frontal impact far exceeds the standard requirements

other new blow molded automotive devices can also be manufactured by following this new technology. Kautex Textron's process director said: "Now we have reached the requirements of internal texture and frontal impact indicators, and can produce A-type, B-type and C-type columns.

the rapid development of long fiber materials

most of the technologies entering the finals of this competition focus on the field of long fiber reinforced thermoplastic, reflecting their increasing interest in the injection molding or molding of long fiber rubber particles, as well as the injection molding or molding process in the composite molding process. The latter is an example, 2 In 2003, Ford launched f2550/340 light truck, "Explorer" and "climber" SUVs, whose pedals adopt this technology, and won the awards of body exterior. Decima mytox uses PP polypropylene filled with 40% long glass fiber as the material to manufacture these pedals by blow molding. These pedals are about 10 inches wide, 1100-2200mm long, and each weighs about 13-17 pounds, about half the weight of similar steel products. This integrated composite board replaces the assembly of 43 parts, which can save $10 per vehicle

another finalist technology is long glass fiber/pp polypropylene prepared by twin-screw composite lamination method, which was applied to the dashboard bracket of Mercedes E-class of DaimlerChrysler company in 2002. The length of glass fiber required for this part exceeds 0.75 inch. It is like that many layered steel plates are embedded in the dial, which plays a good supporting role when the protective airbag of the car expands rapidly and impacts the dial

in 2002, fiesta of European Ford company made the note for the first time