2008-03-17 Manufacturing News

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Polyurethane composite sandwich for novel automotive load beds

Bayer MaterialScience has developed a polyurethane sandwich composite that can be used to fabricate lightweight automotive load beds.

A colored and grained soft-touch of the polyurethane sandwich composite for automotive applications, such as load beds, creates a surface that makes lamination superfluous and is an economical, one-step fabrication.

“Our sandwich composite exhibits surfaces with a high-quality appearance that are robust, soiling-resistant and easy to clean. Laborious lamination with textiles is thus no longer necessary, resulting in significant savings with respect to materials, logistics and machinery,” says Dr. Stephan Schleiermacher, an expert for polyurethane automotive components at Bayer MaterialScience.

The load beds are fabricated according to a novel, innovative concept. First a polyurethane coating is sprayed into a compression mold with a grained lower shell using the in-mold coating process (IMC). On top of this coating film comes a layer of Baytec*, an elastic, tear-resistant and high-wearing polyurethane elastomer. Finally, a polyurethane sandwich package of lightweight paper honeycomb structures and fiberglass mats sprayed on both sides with Baypreg F is applied as a carrier layer. The entire composite is then hot-pressed, during which the low-foaming Baypreg F permanently bonds the individual components of the polyurethane sandwich firmly together.

The abrasion-resistant “topcoat” of the novel olyurethane (PU) sandwich composite is formulated primarily on the basis of PU raw materials from Bayer MaterialScience by Sonneborn & Rieck Ltd., a global manufacturer of high-tech coatings based in Ilford, Essex, England. The coating exhibits excellent adhesion to the Baytec polyurethane substrate.

The automotive load beds are insensitive to “everyday” chemicals and can be simply wiped down with common cleansers. “This makes the soft-touch coating significantly easier to care for than a carpet covering,” says Schleiermacher. Scratches in the coating are not obvious because the color of the underlying layer of Baytec can be matched to the coating. The surface grain can be varied to produce anything from a leather-like appearance to a napped grain.

PU sandwich for novel automotive load beds. View High resolution image. photo: Bayer MaterialScience AG

Referencing the image at right, the entire polyurethane composite for the automotive load bed is hot-pressed, during which the individual components of the polyurethane sandwich are bonded firmly together.

* Trademark of Bayer MaterialScience.

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