DuPont: Advanced plastics and elastomers for vehicle engine systems

Geneva, Switzerland - DuPont has published a new white paper to explain how replacing metals with high-performance polymers can help make vehicles lighter with the added benefits of easier processing, integration of functions and lower costs.

According to DuPont, one of the most significant challenges faced by car manufacturers today is CO2 and NOx emissions reduction, and arguably the most effective way to meet toughening emissions legislation is to reduce fuel consumption by rightsizing and turbo charging engines for greater efficiency.

Taking weight out of the vehicle is also a key route to achieving those goals, but the question is — how best to reduce weight?,  the company added in a press release about the new guide.

Entitled DuPont High-Performance Polymers for Automotive Air Management Applications, the guide is intended to help design engineers and material specifiers meet the latest engine performance, emissions and light-weighting challenges by using the advanced plastics and elastomers.

The focus is, of course, on materials developed and supplied by DuPont, including Hytrel thermoplastic polyester elastomers and Kalrez perfluoroelastomers, and Vamac ethylene acrylic elastomers among other materials.

Engineering polymers, said DuPont, are replacing metals in many air management components, lowering weight by up to 50% and costs by some 20% compared to metal counterparts,. They can also provide "outstanding" heat and fluid aging resistance to the hotter, chemically aggressive operating conditions in today’s more compact and increasingly turbocharged engines.

“The automotive industry is changing fast, and material suppliers must keep pace with challenging new requirements,” said Klaus Bender, global automotive air management leader at DuPont.  “Being a pioneer in the development of blow moulded air ducts helped us build our expertise in leading edge polymer technology for air management systems.”

The new guide here, he added, “will help provide a fast track to advanced plastics and elastomers that provide lightweight solutions for the latest rightsized engines.”