Gluing Cars Together? Controlling the structural adhesive assembly process.
Situation:
The requirement for fuel efficiency has driven the auto industry to use lighter weight materials. Since it’s not practical to weld aluminum to steel, joining using structural adhesives has been on the rise.
Problems:
- Skips in the bead dispensing have multiple cause. A common cause is changing out the barrel of adhesive material
- Nozzle plow occurs when variation in part dimensions and fixturing procedures causes the dispensing nozzle to plow into the bead and compromise the bead's volume
- Neck downs or blow out happens when variation in temperature and other environmental factors causes the adhesive to be dispensed in lower or higher volumes and can effect the integrity of the final assembly
- Breaking nozzle happens when variation in part dimensions causes the dispensing nozzle to crash into the part, causing costly downtime.
Costs of dispensing process problems
- Liability due to poorly bonded parts
- Scrap and lost production
- Slowing or stopping of production to make repairs
- Warranty costs
- Sacrificing parts for destructive testing
Payoff of process control:
Knowing the volume of adhesive at every inch interval ensures wet-out specs are met
Accurate prediction of wet-out from inch by inch continuous volume monitoring
Automatic repair of adhesive beads
Solution:
3D inline volume based process contril with integrated automatic repair
Brock LaHart (734)417-5799 [email protected]