September 1, 2010 - Leverkusen, Germany - LANXESS at Composite Europe 2010, September 14–16, 2010, Essen Congress Center, Hall 10-11, Stand F60.
The LANXESS Semi-Crystalline Products (SCP) business unit is taking part in the joint stand of the Ministry for Economic Affairs, SMEs and Energy of North Rhine-Westphalia at Composite Europe 2010 in Essen. “This trade fair is regarded as one of the key events for all application sectors of the composite materials market. That is why it is the ideal platform for us to meet with professional partners to discuss our latest developments for lightweight construction using composite materials such as organic sheet,” explains Hartwig Meier, Head of Product and Application Development in the SCP business unit and Deputy Chairman of the Board of the “kunststoffland NRW e. V.” industry initiative. The joint stand, whose slogan is “Lightweight Construction in NRW”, hosts universities, other companies, the “Kunststoff.NRW” and “NanoMikro+Werkstoffe.NRW” clusters and the ALROUND (Aktionsgemeinschaft luft- und raumfahrtorientierter Unternehmen in Deutschland e. V.) association.
LANXESS will be exhibiting the spare wheel recess with integrated reinforcing channels from the new Audi A8. With dimensionsof 100 x 85 x 32 cm, it is unusually large for an injection-moldedpart and is produced using the exceptionally stiff polyamide 6 Durethan DP BKV 60 H2.0 EF reinforced with 60 percent glass fibers. “This part highlights the enormous potential that exists in lightweight construction for substituting metal by polyamides highly reinforced with glass fibers,” says Meier. It would have been very difficult to make the component from sheet metal due to the limited space available and the high thermoforming ratios. In addition, using polyamide 6 made it possible to integrate several functions directly. Incorporating these functions in a metal design would have required a large number of separate production and assembly steps with all the associated costs.
Composite Europe 2010 represents the entire value-added chain of the composite industry. Some 350 exhibitors from 25 countries have announced their participation. These include suppliers of technologies for laminating and pultrusion, manufacturers of raw materials such as resins, glass fibers and carbon fibers, and producers of semi-finished products (e.g. prepregs and sheet mold compounds), intermediates and finished products (e.g. profiles, molded parts and sheets).
LANXESS (lanxess.com) is a leading specialty chemicals company with sales of EUR 5.06 billion in 2009 and currently around 14,400 employees in 23 countries. The company is represented at 42 production sites worldwide. The core business of LANXESS is the development, manufacturing and marketing of plastics, rubber, intermediates and specialty chemicals.
