Auburn Hills, Michigan -- Huntsman Corp is installing a honeycomb panel composite spray moulding production cell at its technical centre to support the company’s expanding automotive and industrial businesses.
The new Hennecke HK metering machine for PU composite spray moulding allows for development and prototyping of honeycomb panel composite spray mouldings, used for parcel trays, sun shades and cargo area load floors.
It will also increases the range of quality composite solutions that Huntsman Polyurethanes can provide to the transportation market, according to the firm.
“This should also help customers shorten their development cycle, and allow them to conduct pilot-scale production of parts and systems before going into full-scale manufacturing,”
David Bareis, market development manager, polyurethane composites, Huntsman Polyurethanes said: “This should also help customers shorten their development cycle, and allow them to conduct pilot-scale production of parts and systems before going into full-scale manufacturing,”
The honeycomb composite panels are commonly manufactured for non-structural automotive applications using glass-fibre with a paper honeycomb core.
“The market for this technology is firmly established in Europe, but it is growing very rapidly in the Americas,” said Randy Wellman, automotive business manager, Huntsman Polyurethanes.
“We intend to use this new equipment for the known industry applications, but we will also extend the technology with our Vitrox polyurethane and Araldite epoxy chemistries to advanced honeycomb structural components using carbon fibre and high performance honeycomb cores.”
The CSM machine will be commissioned in late September with development programmes scheduled for early October.
