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TOP PERFORMANCE WITH TOP ADHESIVE
30 June 2002 - Huntsman Araldite
| The success story of Audi in motor sport continues. In addition to winning the rally
world championship and its triumph in saloon car racing, Audi has completed a
further chapter in the history of motor sport. |
For the second year running, Audi has won the arguably most difficult and demanding motor race in the world, the 24 hours of Le Mans. Thanks to ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’, the two Infineon Audi R8 cars set the pace from the beginning.
With Audi Sport, success is no coincidence, but the result of years of experience in co-operation with reliable partners. About 100 people at Audi Sport are permanently looking for the best technical
solutions for the further development of their vehicles, as in the case of joining
aluminium water coolers for the 610 horsepower V8 biturbo engine to the CFRP
frame of the vehicle structure. In extreme conditions, the bonded area can be
exposed to temperatures as high as 130°C. The different heat expansion coefficients of aluminium and CFRP led to adhesive bonding as the preferred joining method. For an adhesive to be suitable for such an application, it has to meet the most
stringent requirements. On the one hand, the adhesive must retain its high strength, even at elevated temperatures, and safely withstand mechanical stresses and vibration caused by sudden impact. On the other hand it must retain sufficient toughness to compensate for the different thermal expansion coefficients of the bonded substrates across the whole range of operating temperatures. Audi chose Epibond 1590 A/B from Vantico, an adhesive which stands out from other adhesives because of its outstanding test results. This ‘cold-curing’ two-component epoxy paste adhesive has a glass transition temperature of 140°C - 150°C and at 130° still retains a strength of 10 MPa, even with a high shear strain at break of around 100%. This demonstrates that with Epipond 1590 A/B Vantico has succeeded in creating an
adhesive which is unique in combining high strength and high temperature resistance with high toughness. An added benefit of Epibond 1590 A/B, especially for applications in sports equipment, is its low specific gravity of only 1.09 g/ml. In short: characteristics that are convincing.
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