New requirements for polyurethane materials in the development of the automotive industry

The correct use of polyurethane materials can meet the high performance requirements of the car in terms of power, comfort, appearance, interior softening, light weight, and service life. It is an indispensable material in modern automobile manufacturing. In addition to the use of long-sword foamed polyurethane materials, the car also uses a large number of non-foamed polyurethane materials, such as thermoplastic polyurethane elastomers, polyurethane potting materials, polyurethane coatings and polyurethanes. Grease adhesives, etc. The application of these new materials has greatly improved the driving safety and ride comfort of the car.

Polyurethane materials have become more and more widely used in the automotive industry and have become one of the most widely used plastics in automobiles. The global automotive industry uses more than 1 million tons of polyurethane per year. In 2006, China's automobile industry produced more than 7.2 million units. Generally, polyurethane accounts for 15% of automotive plastics. The average usage per vehicle is 15kg, and the total usage will reach 100,000 tons. Most of them use MDI series products.

Depending on the components of the car, polyurethane is adapted to the requirements of the car in different forms and properties such as foam, elastomer, adhesive, etc. For example, polyurethane foam has light weight, heat insulation and good resilience with the change of formula. It has good comfort, low temperature performance, durability, safety and high vibration absorption. Its superiority is incomparable with other materials.

The recycling of waste foam in automobiles and home appliances has received increasing attention. Recently, foreign automakers have been able to recycle 30% of recycled waste foam. The production process is to clean, pulverize, and dry the waste foam, and finally use the adhesive to bond the waste foam together to produce carpet backing and other mats.

Automotive interior parts applications

1. Dashboard

(1) Skin material

At present, automobile manufacturers are pursuing further improvement of the comfort, safety and beauty of the interior space in the interior of the car. It can be said that the car interior is increasingly becoming more advanced. This kind of advanced is first manifested in the use of a variety of materials (fiber fabrics, real leather, plant hair), so that all the surface of the car is softened and strive to beautify (pattern deep, wood grain, color matching). The soft surface material is combined with the internal sound absorbing, vibration absorbing material and skeleton material to form a car roof, a luxury instrument panel, a steering wheel, a seat and the like. However, this development is in fact contradictory to the recycling of materials and the reduction of costs. Therefore, the development can meet the requirements of high-grade interior, soft decoration, individualization, and light weight, low cost, and material recycling. It is imperative to use new materials.

BASF has developed a polyurethane elastomer skin material (TPU) Elastoskin for automotive interiors for the dashboard and door trim interiors, which outperforms the current use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and Other skin materials, which are lower in cost than skin materials such as PVC, are ideal replacements for PVC. The material has excellent mechanical properties, very good leather grain feel, flexibility and luxury, and can be used in two-color products; excellent durability (weather resistance, high temperature resistance, scratch resistance) makes it a high quality C grade The preferred choice for the skin material of the above car interior parts. The material is currently used in the dashboards and door panels of cars such as Buick Park Avenue, Oldsmobile Aurora and Cadillac CTS, and will also be used in new models such as Cadillac Seville and Cadillac Deville, which are just the application of automotive interiors. Start. The greater significance of using aromatic polyurethane to spray the skin is to provide a recyclable meter for the production of polyurethane integration (polyurethane sprayed skin + low density polyurethane buffer foam + polyurethane chopped fiber skeleton). An effective way.

In addition, Bayer's thermoplastic polyurethanes are used in blow molding processes for automotive dashboards and door panels. The process is said to save 70% of the time compared to cast molding.

(2) Dashboard buffer layer

The outer skin of the instrument panel is vacuum formed, filled with semi-rigid polyurethane foam and fixed to the metal or plastic skeleton. Semi-rigid polyurethane foam is characterized by high compressive load and outstanding shock absorption properties, and is very suitable for the manufacture of automotive dashboards and protective cushion materials for armrests, door posts and the like.

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