SABIC Innovative Plastics' new portfolio of top-end automotive
materials kicks electric and hybrid vehicles into high gear

SABIC Innovative Plastics' new portfolio of advanced Noryl* and Valox* automotive resins are designed to help customers create alternative power train solutions by displacing weight and increasing performance for hybrid, plug-in hybrid (PHEV), and battery electric vehicles (BEV). This new portfolio clearly answers the call to cut fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions worldwide in favour of cleaner, better and more economical and environmentally responsible propulsion systems. In addition to helping usher in a new era of greener powertrain technologies, SABIC Innovative Plastics' new materials offer OEMs superior impact strength, toughness, high-temperature resistance and other high-performance properties vs. competitive materials to give these manufactures a huge edge in the high-stakes global automotive arena.

"When automotive OEMs need innovative thermoplastic solutions, they know they can look to us for support," said V. Umamaheswaran (UV), director of Products and Marketing, SABIC Innovative Plastics, Automotive. "Environmentally progressive hybrid electric vehicles are projected to capture a significant share of the global automotive industry by 2015, and we are committed to helping our automotive customers find precise solutions to make their alternative powertrain technologies successful. As more of our customers enter this space, they can have the confidence to know that SABIC Innovative Plastics stands ready to assist in the development of the highest performing materials to help drive forward their new technology platforms."

New Solutions for Hybrid Electric and Battery Electric Vehicle Challenges
Although hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and battery electric vehicles can reduce fuel consumption and emissions, the additional weight of battery packs - up to 300 kg (approx. 661 lbs.) on a mid-sized car - can undermine environmental benefits. To reduce weight, plastics can replace steel in different applications such as battery housings, an approach that is already being taken with leading auto manufacturers. Noryl polyphenylene oxide (PPO) and Valox polybutadiene terephthalate (PBT) resins from SABIC Innovative Plastics are excellent choices for battery components, including frames and housings. These resins also offer significant weight reduction, chemical and temperature resistance, dimensional stability and flame retardance.

Dimensional Stability Under Demanding Requirements
Unlike traditional automotive lead-acid batteries, new higher energy density battery packs are composed of many separate battery cells - up to 200 in some cases - and the structure around these cells and their electronic control systems must maintain stringent dimensional stability. With so many stacked components in limited spaces, even a little instability could potentially cause misfits, leakage or possible damage due to limited clearances.

SABIC Innovative Plastics' Noryl and Noryl GTX* resins offer lower initial mould shrink and warp; lower moisture uptake that minimizes dimensional and mechanical property changes; and a lower and more stable coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE). These high-end properties help keep the performance of the battery pack system stable regardless of potential changes in environment such as temperature, humidity, and load. 

Noryl resin is an amorphous polymer that can maintain its stiffness across a broad temperature range. This ensures better dimensional stability without the use of glass or other fillers that are needed in crystalline resins like polyamides, which may result in dimensional control issues of a part due to anisotropic shrink/growth. Uniquely, the cost-effective Noryl resin family can provide these benefits without compromising chemical resistance to common battery coolant fluids such as ethylene glycol.

Solutions for Unique Electric and Hybrid Electric Vehicle Problems
Battery electric vehicles are also becoming more and more attractive with the advancement of new lithium ion and lithium polymer batteries that have higher power and energy density. In general, batteries operate best at controlled temperatures, requiring vital temperature management of the battery packs. To cool them, liquid cooling often replaces air-cooling for greater efficiency. As a result, these liquids require chemically resistant, high-performance engineering thermoplastic materials. Further, if power is withdrawn from a battery, it will heat up - thus requiring materials with appropriate heat resistance. 

SABIC Innovative Plastics offers a number of materials with these properties, including Ultem* polyetherimide (PEI) resin with high heat resistance and inherent flame retardance, and Valox PBT resin with high heat and chemical resistance. In HEVs, the higher the voltage, the more important electromagnetic interference/radio frequency interference (EMI/RFI) shielding becomes to control the potential interference from the different electronic components such as inverters, electronic control units and battery management system. LNP* Faradex* compounds from SABIC Innovative Plastics provide exceptional EMI/RFI shielding properties without the heavy weight of metal layers or the environmental risks of metallization. For further information, view website: www.sabic-ip.com  Refer to page 144

SABIC Innovative Plastics helps fiber optic industry make the connection
with wavelength-specific Ultem* resin for tough one-piece connectors

To solve the challenges in creating complex, multi-part connectors, SABIC Innovative Plastics has developed specialized grades of its workhorse Ultem* resin to drive forward the development of highly cost-effective, one-piece molded connector designs.  These unique materials, which can be precisely tailored to specific wavelengths and offer attenuation control, extreme high heat resistance and dimensional stability for accurate fibre alignment. This innovative new solution is intended to reduce connector costs by up to 20 percent, accelerate fibre installation and provide exceptionally long service life. SABIC Innovative Plastics' continued investment in new fibre-optic-tailored technologies will help customers in this high-tech industry extend their reach across multiple strategic geographies worldwide.

"A fibre optic installation is only as good as its connections, and our goal is to help our customers in this space produce a new generation of simple, yet extremely reliable and high-performing connectors," said Kim Choate, global product direction, High Performance Products, SABIC Innovative Plastics. "SABIC Innovative Plastics has proactively and consistently developed highly sophisticated materials for this industry to revolutionize connector design and help drive down costs. These new high-tech Ultem resin grades will no doubt play a key role in expanding the availability and use of fibre optic technology to meet the world's fast-growing demand for data access at light speed."

Ultem Resin is on Your Wavelength
Through the use of proprietary technology, SABIC Innovative Plastics can finely and precisely tailor its new Ultem resins to transmit light over the specific wavelength required by the customer or by industry standards. The transparent resin features custom colour to minimize attenuation, and provides exceptional resistance to high temperatures. Excellent dimensional stability helps to ensure that fibres remain aligned within the connector, thus avoiding the need for maintenance or replacement.

Ultem resin's high flow properties enable connectors to be injection moulded with high throughput. Because one-piece designs require no additional assembly, system costs are further reduced. A simpler connector also streamlines installation and avoids multiple points of failure that characterize traditional four- or five-piece designs.

For further information on SABIC Innovative Plastics' Ultem resins, view website: website: www.sabic-ip.com   Refer to page 144

Festo servo-motion control accelerates
throughput of plastic joining machines

Phasa has enhanced the performance of its specialist plastic component joining machines with high performance new versions employing a key servo-based motion control system in place of a pneumatic actuator. The servo enables several seconds to be shaved off the assembly time of complex car door panels, increasing productivity significantly. The slight additional cost of a machine fitted with servo technology will typically repay its investment after just a couple of months.

Phasa takes its name from the process it has pioneered - Plastic Hot Air Stake Assembly. Essentially, the process involves selectively heating parts of thermoplastic mouldings using super-hot air, and then using cold tools to form, clamp and chill the parts into their required shapes. The fixings often take the form of rivets or 'roll overs', and the non-contact heating method ensures that the process is clean - without marking the 'A' face surface - and fast, and the resultant assemblies are strong, tight and stable. Applications for these fixings are diverse and include the automotive, electrical/electronics and white goods industries.

Phasa manufactures standard and custom machines to automate the entire assembly process - from inserting the thermoplastic mouldings into the components being joined, to selectively heating, forming and cooling them. Until relatively recently, all of Phasa's standard machines used only pneumatically-powered motion control, with all control valves and actuators supplied by Festo competitors. However, when the company started to experience supplier product changes for the machines' rodless cylinders, it approached Festo for help. After investigating the application, Festo recommended using its DGC pneumatic cylinders to provide the machines' main platen movement. These rodless linear actuators feature a unique sealing mechanism which ensures efficient operation by virtually eliminating air leakage, and have proved a very reliable replacement. Since then, Phasa has progressively re-designed its range of standard machines to incorporate Festo pneumatic automation components for many of their motion axes.

Phasa has enhanced the performance of its specialist plastic component joining machines with high performance new versions employing a key servo-based motion control system in place of a pneumatic actuator.

Phasa recently expanded its standard machine range to include models that use a servo system in place of a pneumatic cylinder to provide the main movement of assembly nests. The principal advantage of the servo approach is that by using closed-loop control it is capable of fully programmable multi-stop positioning, compared to the end-to-end positioning of standard pneumatic cylinders. This results in faster and more accurate placement of the assembly nest, reducing the overall processing time.

In this particular case, Phasa chose a complete Festo assembly comprising of a toothed belt axis, servomotor, gearbox and servo motor controller to provide the horizontal movement of the assembly nest platen on its large 40/80 machine. This combination, together with the power supply and mechanical connecting kit, is supplied by Festo as a turnkey solution. The servo controller is networked to the 40/80 machine's host PLC. Compared to the all-pneumatic version of the machine, the electric servo based model accomplishes the same assembly operation in 33 seconds, improving throughput by nearly 6 percent.

During the development of the servo system, Phasa found Festo's positioning drives software particularly helpful. This PC-based software tool assists machine designers with the task of selecting the optimum components for a complete, high-efficiency positioning system. After entering a few application details, designers are presented with the ideal combination of electric linear axes, motors, gear units, controllers and software, together with the load characteristics of their selected drive. The software enables designers to evaluate the performance of a system very quickly, turning what can often be a highly iterative procedure into a quick and simple process.

In addition to providing excellent programming flexibility, the CMM-AS servo controller offers a particular benefit for this application, as Terry Elvidge, Phasa's Operations Director, points out: "A further advantage of using Festo servo drives is that they facilitate the capture of timed process parameters for every part made. This is vital to our customers' quality management procedures, enabling the data to be networked to a central server system and logged against the bar code for that particular part, providing a complete manufacturing record. This is especially important in the automotive sector, where products need to be traceable throughout their lifecycle."

Phasa is now looking at incorporating electric servos in a number of its smaller machines. The technology is especially suitable for applications involving fast, highly repeatable movement, and Terry Elvidge is keen to capitalise on its potential, "Although we make extensive use of Festo pneumatic cylinders primarily because of their suitability and function, they have also proved to be cost-efficient for us as we are continually seeking ways of improving the performance of our machines. We are also very customer-driven and aware of market needs - consequently we are currently investigating the use of Festo electric servos in a number of application areas, including automated loading and unloading systems."

In a typical application involving the Phasa 40/80, the parts for a car door panel comprise about six components, such as a map pocket, switch panel and various clasps. These are fitted into the carcass of the panel and then loaded into a preformed nest on the machine by the operator. All subsequent operations are completely automated, with full light guard protection to ensure operator safety. The machine progressively moves the nest through the various process stages, bringing the heater, forming and cooling tools down into close proximity or contact with the plastic stakes. Typically, each plastic stake is heated to 260 degrees Celsius for 6 seconds before the part is moved to the forming stage. The entire process, from loading to unloading, normally takes 35 seconds on the all-pneumatic version of the machine. As soon as the door panel assembly is complete, the nest is returned to the front of the machine and raised at an angle by a small pneumatic cylinder, so that it is easily accessible to the operator. …../Continued on the next page.