BETAFORCE composite bonding adhesives for high-performance bonding in lightweight multi-material vehicles. BETAFORCE adhesives enable significant weight reduction, better corrosion protection and improved acoustic performance.
This composite bonding adhesive is an ideal choice for joining carbon fibre, glass fibre composites and other dissimilar materials such as aluminium, steel and SMC to name but a few.
Composites are gaining traction in automotive production, due to their weight saving potential. Dow Automotive adhesives offer a reliable, alternative joining solution to traditional mechanical and thermal processes, which cannot be applied to these lightweight materials.
Structural Polyurethane Bonding for Multi-Material Lightweight Vehicles
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Multi-material design in automotive manufacturing shows a clear trend towards achieving optimum lightweight results and improved design freedom, while maintaining crash safety requirements.
BETAFORCE Applications
BETAFORCE adhesive systems offer manufacturers the ability to design and construct vehicles, using the latest materials.
It is not only car manufacturers that have embraced structural bonding systems. Many Commercial vehicle, bus, coach and rail customers are positioning Dow Automotive systems in current and future designs.
Applications include
- Composite body panels
- Doors
- Front-end carriers
- Tail gates
- Spoilers
- Structural roof module assembly
- Chassis
- Sunroofs
- Floor systems
- Passenger cells
Additional performance and processing benefits include
- Allows for optimization of substrates and adhesive joint structure
- Excellent temperature resistance and retention of modulus across the working temperature range
- Enables reduction in wall thicknesses due to structural mechanical properties of adhesive
- Enables process time reduction and significant investment savings due to very fast acceleration capabilities
- Demonstrates variable cure rates
- Reduces process complexity due to primer-less adhesion performance
- Provides a corrosion barrier between dissimilar materials
- Reduces noise, vibration and harshness and improves crash performance
- Exhibits broad range of mechanical and product properties
- Has very good bead stability during application
- Allows bonding in general assembly, after e-coat and/or painting
- Combines high modulus, high strength and high elongation in one system for effective management of differential CLTE (for example, carbon fibre composite to aluminium) even on long bond lines
- Provides effective sealing from water intrusion
- Optimal mix ratios at 1:1 by volume
- Demonstrates handling strength in a few minutes with accelerated heat curing enabled by tailored chemistry
- Improves durability due to optimized load distribution
- Available in bulk or small packaging
