Still fresh in the development phase, the Bonding Engineers came together with their partners from the industry to jointly take up the first application challenges. One of the results of this cooperation, which started in 2017, will be presented to the public for the first time by the bonding experts from Neuwied at the end of October. As partners of this year’s Automotive Glazing Europe (29th / 30th of October, Düsseldorf), Lohmann will introduce the UV-LUX application pin-bonding in cooperation with NSG/Pilkington.
The application for fixating plastic components to glass modules is in good company at the Automotive Glazing: The CTI (Car Training Institute) organized conference is one of the most important ones for glazing in the automotive industry internationally. It is the place where an expert audience consisting of OEMs, suppliers and experts from research and development meet for lectures and discussions relating to current developments in their sector.
This year’s key issue: connectivity and autonomous driving. The connectivity of the vehicle and the infrastructure, which enables autonomous driving, is progressing fast. This also has an effect on glazing in the automotive industry: It connects the passenger to his surroundings – functionally and aesthetically. Thus, bonding solutions play a vital role in regards to safety as well as in regards to design.
Our Bonding Engineers Cornelia Sundrum (New Business Development) and Dr.-Ing. Johannes Stahl (Application Engineering) will explain in detail how the UV-LUX technology can revolutionize this process in their lecture “Fast and safe bonding to glass with UV-activated Epoxy-Tapes”.
We get a little preview in this interview.
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| Nicole Ehrmann | Dr. Johannes Stahl | Cornelia Sundrum |
What are your expectations of participating in the Automotive Glazing?
Cornelia Sundrum: „We want to introduce our UV-LUX technology to an expert audience for the very first time. We will do a live demonstration of the color change at our small booth. Of course we would be glad if the application we developed with Pilkington were valuable for other customers as well, i.e. if we could multiply the application.”
Johannes Stahl: „In short: two days of intensive networking with the industry – that is very important for us. Our colleague Nicole Ehrmann from Market & Product Management Transportation will be supporting us."
Which specific application is behind “pin-bonding” in automotive glazing?
J.S.: „In the automotive industry, pins are used, inter alia, for precisely inserting laminated glass and tempered glass modules into the chassis. During this procedure the bond mustn’t allow for relative movements of the components, otherwise the joint pattern will no longer fit. Keyword: “zero-joint-strategy”. There are additional influences such as the weight of the panes, the assembly forces by robots or climate change tests that the adhesive bond has to withstand.”
C.S.: „Because of that, our bonding solution has to be, above all, safe to use – here, the color change of UV-LUX comes into play. The activation becomes immediately apparent and during the following open time processes can be structured flexibly. By means of a cationic activation (curing without additional UV-light radiation), UV-LUX technology can also be used for opaque components.”
Could you tell us more about the UV-LUX development process? What was the collaboration with your partners from NSG/Pilkington like?
J.S.: „For the current application, we fully developed the UV-LUX technology together with our customer Pilkington. Working with such a large company and many different contacts is complex of course – the cross-company team did an excellent job, we were met with great openness. For example in regards to the support for the specification of customer requirements.”
C.S.: „This great cooperation led to constant improvements: In four weeks only we were able to present the first samples with color change, signaling a successful activation, to our customer. Thanks to the focused work of the project team, technically realizing customer requirements very quickly.”
What is the current status of the UV-LUX „story“?
J.S.: “Right now, UV-LUX is striking a significant chord with customers and new contacts – even some you would not have expected initially.”
C.S.: „We were able to answer some of the customer requests immediately with other Lohmann bonding technologies, e.g. bonding technical textiles with our excellent PUR adhesive films. Here, too, we see that we won’t be able to meet all demands with just one product, we will thus bit by bit build a portfolio for various substrates and requirements.”
Finally, an outlook: On the UV-LUX website, an additional application – lab-on-a-chip – has already been introduced. Which alternative applications do you see for this technology?
J.S.: “We are currently working on a concrete answer to that question quite intensively…”
C.S.: „Right. We basically see potential wherever the advantages of adhesive tapes shall be combined with the strength of semi-structural bonds – without thermal input. For that, we continue to gladly accept customer challenges.”
You want to meet our Bonding Engineers at the Automotive Glazing and have a conversation? Just visit our UV-LUX homepage and make an appointment in advance via the contact form!www.uv-lux.de
