Openair-Plasma® activation for reliable structural bonding in vehicle manufacturing, without using environmentally damaging primers
Today’s vehicle superstructures are assembled using adhesive bonding throughout to ensure greater inherent strength and improved durability of joints, with lower production costs. The vehicle manufacturing industry is now one of the largest consumers of structural adhesives. This means the demands put on structural bonding are high and they will only be met with reliable and reproducible pretreatments.
In truck manufacturing, Openair-Plasma® treatment for surface activation successfully replaces conventional pretreatment such as mechanical roughening and activation with environmentally damaging primers.
Advantages of Openair-Plasma® in manufacturing vehicle superstructures:
- Cleaner process
- Higher throughput
- Completely automated pretreatment
- ISO-compliant process monitoring
Interesting success stories in this field
Structural Adhesive Bonding for Truck Refrigeration Trailers: secure adhesion for bonds with long-term stability
Truck refrigeration trailers are composed of sandwich elements providing excellent insulation. The entire refrigeration superstructure is self-supporting and reinforcing profiles are glued to its corners and longitudinal edges.
Leading refrigeration trailer manufacturers have chosen Openair-Plasma® pretreatment to ensure uniform bonding at a high level. When this process is used, there is no need for toxic primers at all, and no more investing in expensive equipment to recover solvent vapors.
The results are excellent!
Protecting Rainforests: Openair-Plasma® enables use of high-quality plastic alternatives in mobile home interiors
Lightweight construction is a specially challenging criterion in the manufacture of mobile homes as well, making lightweight and moisture-resistant materials a necessity for their interiors.
High-quality interiors for mobile homes are still largely composed of endangered rainforest woods, such as obechi. These trees cannot be cultivated and their harvesting represents predatory destruction of natural habitat.
Surface pretreatment with Openair-Plasma® makes it possible to manufacture components from alternative materials like polyurethane high-density foam. To meet the decorative requirements for furniture components, high-density foam elements are laminated with high-quality furniture films. Openair-Plasma® ensures secure and durable bonding without using bonding agents, like primers. The high-density polyurethane parts are not only very good looking; they exceed rainforest woods in lightness and durability.
