European commercial transportation and automotive industries are key for the economic growth of the Union, having exported 6.2 million vehicles and generating a positive trade balance for Europe in excess of €100 billion in 2018.
In order to comply with the CO2 emissions reduction policies, automotive Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) invest billions of Euros into helping improve the fuel efficiency and environmental performance of their products. As a consequence, vehicles’ weight is continuously being reduced, spurring the use of lightweight materials such as plastics, composites, and aluminium. These materials require adhesives to bond parts in the vehicle assembly stage or the glass of windshields, windows and sunroofs. Additionally, they can act as sealant producing barriers to corrosion and transmission of sound, and heat resistance that increases their value as engineering materials.
Materials that provide strong, durable, and reliable bonds of dissimilar materials are enabling innovative approaches to vehicle weight reduction today and will be even more important in the future as lighter electric cars are introduced. Average bond length per vehicle currently is about 25 linear meters, and it is expected to rise nearly 27 linear meters by 2020.
NPT, with more than 25 years of experience in the development and production of high-performance adhesives and sealants, has been investing during the last two years on how to develop an innovative solution to meet these challenges. Advanced-SiMP will bring to the market the most competitive SiMP solution able to comply with all the technical and mechanical challenges and environmental regulations, offering great performance, no complexity over application and a greener profile. We have identified that if we were to take Advanced-SiMP to mechanical properties of max tensile stress of 8-10 MPa and elongation of ≥ 300%, we will be able to replace toxic PU in the BTR and OEM market.
This projects has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement.