Foam moulding | technology
The need to reduce part weight and cost without sacrificing on performance is seeing growing interest in foamed injection moulding. Chris Smith considers the latest innovations.
Expanding interest in lightweight parts
Growing demands from OEMs – and from the automo- tive industry in particular – to save weight is driving interest in new process technologies that allow foams to be created during the moulding process, simultane- ously reducing part cost and improving part quality. The latest to announce an interest in this area is
French automotive components group Mecaplast, which believes it will be able to reduce the weight of interior and exterior trim parts by between 30 and 50% through the use of a proprietary injection moulding process in combination with specially developed PP compounds. The Monaco-headquartered company is leading a
€2.4 million two-year multi-participant French government-sponsored project, which begins in September and aims to take the process to commercial application. Other participants include Saint-Martin de Crau-based compounder Sumika Polymer Compounds (a Sumitomo Chemical Group company), Nantes-based mouldmaker Cero, the IMP polymer science research laboratory at the University of Saint-Etienne, and the Sophia Antipolis-based Cemef process simulation research laboratory at the Mines ParisTech institute. The process, named Plume, makes use of a combi- nation of moving mould elements, chemical blowing agents and lightweight reinforcing fillers. “Incorpora-
www.compoundingworld.com
tion of parts made by the Plume process could lead to a total vehicle weight reduction of between 5 and 7 kg,” says Elsa Germain, research and innovation engineer at Mecaplast. “This will have an important knock-on effect on fuel consumption, with resulting carbon dioxide emissions falling by around 0.5-0.7 g/km.” In the Plume process, the polymer containing a
chemical blowing agent is injected into a mould with movable surfaces that are initially in the forward position. Once all material has been injected and the skin of the part has solidified, the entire mould surface is retracted to enlarge the cavity. This lowers the pressure so the chemical blowing agent comes out of solution in the areas of the part still molten, resulting in
Main images: IP carriers for Ford’s Escape and Kuga
models require around 0.5 kg less material
through the use of Mucell
technology
August 2012 | COMPOUNDING WORLD 45
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
