Abstract
Increasing use is being made of plastics and reinforced reaction injection moulded polymers for large and complex automotive parts. Polyurea RIM materials have become established in this market by fulfilling necessary technical and thermal resistance requirements - and by enabling dependable and consistent production of parts to be achieved at the rates required by industry.
ICI has developed a range of polyurea systems capable of providing particularly high temperature and corrosion resistance and high impact strength. These systems may be processed on existing high-throughput RIM equipment, using relatively low clamping pressures. But machinery manufacturers are already extending their ranges with higher output dispensing units, more automated controls and gas nucleation of the chemical components.
Because of their toughness at demould and excellent self-release character¬istics, RIM polyureas permit markedly shorter cycling on sophisticated automated lines. The addition of robotised part demoulding makes it possible to reduce overall cycle times to less than one minute.
Polyurea RIM systems have progressed particularly rapidly over the past two years. A major car producer in Europe has already approved and commenced production with a RIMline® polyurea bumper system from ICI. Today's fast-reacting, self-releasing polyurea systems are not only suitable for fully auto¬mated production, but also offer the potential for on-line painting. The trend to decreasing production volumes as a consequence of greater model differentia¬tion will contribute to the economic competitiveness of polyurea for external body panel production.
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