Lanxess focuses on Tepex for lightweighting

Specialty chemicals company Lanxess is focusing on Tepex, the continuous fibre-reinforced thermoplastic high-performance composites from its subsidiary Bond-Laminates.

“Our intention is to highlight the enormous potential for lightweight design opened up by our composites. To this end, we are showcasing a number of examples from lightweight design in automobiles, sports equipment such as soccer boots, and housing components for the consumer electronics industry,” said Jochen Bauder, managing director at Bond-Laminates.

The new multi-axial Tepex semi-finished products are an innovation highlight. Bond-Laminates can produce them continuously in an industrial-scale process that enables the continuous fibre layers to be oriented at almost any angle in the thermoplastic matrix. It is even possible to achieve quasiisotropic lay-ups. “The designer can now orient the layers of continuous fibers precisely to the flow of forces in the part. The resulting composite components are designed with great precision to suit the load, and are therefore lightweight,” said Dr Christian Obermann, also managing director at Bond-Laminates. The new semi-finished products offer a great deal of forming freedom. Bond Laminates uses special nesting programs to cut them into precontoured inserts for its customers so as to ensure minimal offcuts.

The hybrid technology using Tepex with polyamide 6 as an overmolding material has already conquered a large number of series applications in the lightweight design of automobiles. Examples include a seat shell, a brake pedal and an infotainment carrier. Durethan BKV 55 TPX, a new

polyamide 6 reinforced with 55 percent short glass fibres and optimised for overmoulding Tepex, will also be introduced. “It has particularly good flow properties while also exhibiting outstanding mechanical attributes. It also offers a large processing window and forms a material bond with Tepex,” said Dr. Martin Wanders, head of global applications development in the High Performance Materials (HPM) business unit at Lanxess. It has particularly good potential for very thin-walled lightweight composite parts with large flow length/wall-thickness ratios. Alternative to polypropylene in the DLFT process In Durethan B 24 CM H2.0 (previously Durethan TP 173-007), Lanxess has developed an alternative to polypropylene in the DLFT process (Direct Long Fiber Thermoplastics).

Compared to conventional polyamide 6-based long-fibre compression molding compounds, the melt of this heat-stabilized material exhibits much better flow properties. It can also be processed fume-free at extrusion temperatures of 280deg C to 300deg C. Unlike polypropylene, it can withstand the drying temperatures that follow cathodic dip painting (CDP).