Efficient Manufacturing Methods for Hybrid Metal-Polymer Components

Abstract

Lightweight design for automotive applications gains more and more importance for future products, independent from the powertrain concept. One of the key issues in lightweight design is to utilize the right material for the right application using the right value at the right place. This results irrevocably in a multi-material design. In order to increase the efficiency in manufacturing car components, the number of single parts in a component is decreased by increasing the complexity. Examples for the state of the art are tailored welded blanks in cold forming, tailored tempering in press hardening or metallic inlays in injection molding of polymers. The challenge for future production scenarios of multi-material components is to combine existing technologies for metal- and polymer-based applications in efficient hybrid process chains. This paper shows initial approaches of hybrid process chains for efficient manufacturing of hybrid metal-polymer components. These concepts are feasible for flat as well as for tubular applications. Beside the creation of the final geometric properties of the component by a forming process, integrated joining operations are increasingly required for the efficiency of the production process and the performance characteristics of the final component. Main target of this production philosophy is to create 100% ready-to-install components. This is shown in three examples for hybrid process combinations. The first example deals with the combination of metal forming and injection molding of polymers. Example number two is the application of hybrid metal-polymer blanks. Finally, example number three shows the advantages of process integrated forming and joining of single basic components.

New Method to Distinguish Adhesion and Cohesion Stresses in Metal/Polymer Composites

“…Previous studies presented a shear resistance of 1.86 MPa and, applying surface treatments to aluminum and polyethylene surfaces, the results were higher than 10.9 MPa 21 . In this study, however, although there was an improvement in the shear resistance with the acetone treatment, there was not a differentiation on the shear adhesive or cohesive stress.…”

Deep Drawing Behaviour of Steel–Glass Fibre-Reinforced and Non-Reinforced Polyamide–Steel Sandwich Materials

“…For a semi-cured GLARE ® sheet with a blank diameter of 140 mm and a punch diameter of 75 mm, it can be deep-drawn to 30 mm without wrinkling or fracture by varying the holding force from 110 kN to 40 kN in two steps [16]. For the non-cured thermoplastic resin-based FML, a thermoformed laminate structure can be produced by combining polymer injection moulding, where the metal cover and fibres are formed first, then thermoplastic polymer is injected from the edges between the formed metal laminates at a high temperature and pressure, and, finally, the thermoplastic resin is cooled and polymerised to produce a 3D sandwich structure through a combination of deep drawing and thermoplastic resin transfer moulding (T-RTM) [17]. However, moulding techniques using semi-cured or non-cured resin-based FML require high equipment accuracy and control.…”

Smart Process Combination for Aluminum/Plastic Hybrid Components

“…As possible alternatives, various surface structures, engrailing, sandblasting and laser structuring, were tested on aluminum (EN AW6060) and steel pipes (1.4301). These were presented extensively in [14], [15] and [16]. The best results can be achieved for aluminum as well as for steel pipes with laser structuring.…”