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Industry-First, Mold-In-Color , High-Gloss, High-Touch Black Resin for Automotive Interiors. Panel 4: Innovative Materials. Robert D. Bedard Product Development Engineer Ford Motor Company May 21, 2014. Today’s Agenda. Industry Trend. Fusion/Mondeo. A8/A4. 1 Series/F20.
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Industry-First, Mold-In-Color, High-Gloss, High-Touch Black Resin for Automotive Interiors Panel 4: Innovative Materials Robert D. Bedard Product Development Engineer Ford Motor Company May 21, 2014
Industry Trend Fusion/Mondeo A8/A4 1 Series/F20 Hyundai Sonata Corvette XJ/X351 High-Gloss Black interior finishes are popular in today’s vehicle themes
– Project Vision –utilize Mold-In-Color (Paint-free)Technology to achieve jewelry-like, high-gloss, solid-color automotive interior trim panels
This vision is aligned with Ford’s Primary Brand Pillars Smart: Pleasing to the eye, and accentuates the interior theme & style. High-series appearance at affordable cost. Quality: Tough enough to withstand the rigors of repetitive contact, use, and the external elements Green: Manufactured without high-gloss paint, which is typically employed to make interior parts shine and to provide surface protection
Conventional Technology • The conventional injection molding process leaves surface defects on the visible surface of the component, such as weld-lines and flow-marks • Paint must be used to: • cover these surface defects • Achievejet-black color,high-gloss, and deep, depth-of-image Weld-line Flow-mark
Conventional Value Chain for High-Gloss Paint Injection Molding Freight Resin Compounding Warehousing at Paint Supplier Sub-assembly Clean-Room Paint Facility Freight OEM Long supplier chain, inefficient logistics, and scrap rate at paint shop all contribute to low, overall yield
Technology Breakthrough: Theory • A thermoplastic, in the liquid state, is injected into a mold. The thermoplastic then changes from a liquid state to a solid state, due to heat transfer into the mold’s walls. • When a liquid thermoplastic is divided within the mold, the temperature at the front of the flow-front is higher than at the back of the flow-front. When two “cold” flow-fronts meet, a weld-line is produced. • Solution: Control heat transfer by raising mold temperature as needed to reduce heat loss a* Knit Line visible to naked eye Knit Line invisible to naked eye b* *Advanced course on Applied Energy Engineering, Tokyo Tech OCW
Tooling Design Innovation • Electrically controlled heating elements are placed within the mold cavity to elevate the mold’s surface temperature above that which is used in conventional injection molding • The cavity shell “floats” to enable efficient “heat-up” and “cool-down” phases of the molding cycle. • The cavity shell is made of a special grade of stainless steel that provides bothhigh thermal conductivity and high flexibility 3 1 1 2 2 3
Tooling Design Innovation • The heating elements within the cavity reduce flow-front heat loss, allowing the thermoplastic to flow and knit homogeneously within the injection mold. The elements are organized into zones, which govern heat delivery to respective regions within the cavity. A controller unit is used to tailor the amount of heat delivered to each zone, based on the amount of heat required to achieve exceptional surface finish for complicated component geometry.
Tooling Design Innovation Conventional Cooling Method New Cooling Method A B A • Water flows through a “circuit” to stabilize the temperature of the mold’s core B • Heat is rapidly extracted from the mold’s core through contact with a specially designed “cooling plate”
Material Science Innovation • Ford Motor Company and BASF Corporation partnered to develop an all-new polyamide resin used to manufacture the Fusion’s four door trim panel switch bezels; this was the automotive industry’s first application of paint-free, jewelry-like, jet-black trim panels located within interior high-touch zones • This paint-free material science innovation was achieved via the following enablers: the use of exotic additives, optimization of the polymer formulation, and the use of specialized colorant packages • Approximately 75 different iterations of additives, polymers, and colorants were extensively tested to hone in on the final formulation, in order to deliverdepth-of-color and to meet durability requirements BEFORE AFTER
Technology enables a Paradigm Shift across the entire Value Chain Long Supplier Chain Creation of VOCs & CO2 High Scrap Rate High Hidden Factory costs Shortened Supplier Chain Mitigation of VOCs & CO2 Low Scrap Rate Reduced Hidden Factory costs
Smart Ford Fusion Door Switch BezelsHigh-Touch, High-Gloss Black Mold-In-Color 36% COST AVOIDANCE! Mold-In-Color Conventional Molding + Pigmented Base Coat & Clear Top Coat
Smart “The Tip of the Iceberg”More opportunities exist across entire vehicles Approximately 40% savings per Fusion, Mondeo door bezel Several million dollars of incremental revenue generated per Fusion, Mondeo Future Opportunity: Forecasted Global Annual Volume: approximately 6 million units Future Opportunity: Millions of dollars of revenue generated annually, per additional Ford components
Quality • Mitigated paint-introduced quality defects like loss of adhesion, orange peel, dirt-in-paint, dry spray, etc. • Strengthened product appeal in marketplace. For example, J.D. Power & Associates APEALStudy stated:
Green • Mitigated Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) created by paint process • Reduced CO2 emissions due to stream-lined Value Chain. An estimated 60,000 pounds of CO2 are mitigated annually from Ford Fusion production. • Eliminated paint waste from entering landfills • Improved health & safety via mitigation of exposure to harmful paint chemicals www.123rf.com
High-Gloss Mold-In-Color Applications in Development
Recognitions • 2014 Automotive News PACE™ Innovation Partnership Award • 2014 Automotive News PACE™ Innovation Award for Material Development
Materials Category Finalist with BASF Corporation, 2012 Recognitions US Patent Office, 2013 & 2014 On-line Publication, 2013 On-line Publication, 2013
Our Team Ford Motor Company: Engineering, Design, Development, & Testing H. M. Sun, M. Masserant, C. Boese, R. Bedard, D. Woods, C. Nielsen BASF Corporation & Americhem, Incorporated : Resin & Colorant Development J. Leptich, H. Cowell, S. Tupper, S. Windahl, S. Hanley, T. Patel, B. Myers Michael Tool & Mold, Synventive Molding Solutions, CUMSA: Tooling M. Graf, J. Sulaiman, A. Hui, R. Cilia, R. Long, S. Navarra, J. de Fortuny NADA Innovation: E-Mold Technology M. Kang, D. Lee, K. Shin Summit Polymers, Incorporated: Manufacturing P. Bassett, K. Klimach, S. Crandall, K. Bulifant, M. Lazor, T. Loc
Technology Evolution Automotive Interiors Large Screen TVs 2012 Ford Escape – High Gloss Home Appliances 2013 Ford Escape – Low Gloss Technology migrated from consumer electronics to automotive. Ford leads in the automotive industry.
