“Like the past few decades, our industry continues to look for opportunities to replace traditional materials with plastic composites,” said Mark Minnichelli, Director of R&D at BASF Functional Materials.
He highlighted the continued interest in fiber-reinforced thermoplastics and composites in the automotive and other fields, adding, “We are seeing increasing interest in the combination and type of various fiberglass and carbon fibers. The company has several ongoing The automotive project is exploring carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastics, and the further decline in carbon fiber prices has made us feel that more people will be interested in the material.” Minnichelli pointed out that this thermoplastic composite has been successfully applied to grid reinforcement materials, and the company is exploring It is the development of structural oil pans and other structural applications. At the forefront of fiberglass, he confirmed that BASF will continue to explore polyamides with higher glass content, for example, “we are transitioning from a typical 30-35% glass content to a glass content of 50-55%, to Achieve excellent stiffness and strength to meet new opportunities.” He believes that automotive lightweighting will continue and will be further supported by electric and automated vehicles.
In addition, there is another area that is highlighted on the S15023 stand. If the breadth of BASF materials and additive technology is taken into consideration, it is not difficult to think of 3D printing. BASF highlighted the company's partnership with specialty fiber manufacturer Essentium Materials in Texas University City.
Minnichelli said that BASF has made a significant investment in high-performance materials for 3D printing. The company's extensive polyamide portfolio and know-how, the popular FFS / FDM process, is a key target. At the same time, he also stressed that BASF is interested in providing materials for various additive manufacturing processes. "One of the Achilles heel of the layering process is the strength limit of the layered components in the z direction. We are focusing on this problem."
It is said that BASF's ongoing patented Ultrasim predictive simulation technology is superior to other analytical techniques in that it predicts 90-95% accuracy in converting metal to plastic conversion performance. BASF has successfully applied it to solve polyurethane foam performance problems and is exploring similar predictive assessments for injection molding TPUs to address new application opportunities.
