Joining in Car Body Engineering
We were very pleased to present PowderBondPP at ‘Joining in Car Body Engineering 2021 – Detroit meets Bad Neuheim’, 19-22nd April, together with bigHead Bonding Fasteners. The presentation was an exciting update to LeanBonding - namely Lean BondingPP in which PowderBondPP forms easy, secure bonds between metal and polypropylene.
Joining technology is central to technical discussions within automotive industry as it transforms and embraces advanced mixed material concepts. Both the US and European conferences will took place virtually, forming an all-virtual Automotive Circle Joining in Car Body Engineering week, 2021.
The previous inability to reliably bond polyproylene, the most cost-effective thermoplastic, to metal, has certainly presented a stumbling block in affordable lightweight vehicle design. PowderBondPP opens up the field again, bringing far more freedom in design and with that, a wide range of exciting possibilities for new vehicles. Necessity has always driven invention and the need to redesign the vehicles on which we all rely, in order to reduce CO2 emissions, is now so urgent and overwhelming that new enabling technologies should be evaluated and adopted wherever possible, and sooner rather than later.
LeanBondingPP enables metal to PP joining purposes outside of moulding techniques. The excellent tensile bond strength, six times that of a plasma treated / 2 K epoxy structural adhesive control system, makes the system particularly suitable for the application of metallic fasteners to PP based composite materials. This feature is being evaluated by bighead Bonding Fasteners as it looks to extend its own Lean Bonding® process capability to join metal fasteners to polypropylene, the most widely used thermoplastic material.
The two technologies have a natural synergy and the collaboration looks specifically at creating strong reliable bonds with a simple, customer-ready process. The process is compatible with automated application lines and the removal of the need to functionalise the composite surface makes this a very attractive proposition. Necessity is the mother of invention – and innovation The previous inability to reliably bond PP, the most cost-effective thermoplastic, t
