Since 2002, the world’s major regions of the automobile industry gradually rise, and the number of cars the increasing, which also means that the automobile industry in a variety of parts, repair, and maintenance in the proper further advantages, the application of silicone products in the automobile industry skyrocketed, and with the deterioration of the environment, more enterprises choose natural synthetic silicone to replace plastic products, such as auto parts, pipes and so on. So in the next few decades, synthetic silicone will occupy the field of auto parts and will be worth our attention.
In the automobile field from 2017 to 2020 statistics, the average demand for natural silicone rubber in a car is 120 kg/ car, which is only for silicone products. The average consumption of polyurethane glue, acrylic ester, and anaerobic glue on the car adhesive can reach 280G. For the automobile natural silicone products industry in 2020, the nationwide application can be up to 5579 tons, and the total vehicle has nearly risen to nearly 300 million. In the face of large and small auto parts, so silicone products manufacturers are conscientious in the design of auto parts. Why silicone rubber is chosen for auto parts and products? This is because silicone products have unique properties and advantages enough to replace other products!
Faced with the huge demand in the automotive field, silicone products manufacturers for automotive sealing products, shock absorption products, and other auto silicone parts have exquisite production technologies, now auto parts for the appearance and performance of the product have higher requirements, so now manufacturers will deliberately to make the material of the product has the corresponding requirements. For example, the hardness and elasticity of the above requirements are relatively high, so the selection of material will look for reasonable raw materials and curing agents, the production process of mold development and mold line adjustment will do the customer’s needs to meet the standards!
Automotive Silicone Products
• Brake Hose
Due to the emergence of the maintenance cost-free car, the increase of the working temperature of the brake fluid, and the use of high boiling point brake fluid, there is a trend of replacing butadiene silicone rubber with EPDM inside and outside the brake rubber hose. The brake rubber hose’s external and internal rubber layer is mostly EPDM silicone, and the reinforced layer uses polyester, polyethanol, or rayon fiber. The inner adhesive layer can be pressure-resistant polyamide, and the outer adhesive layer can be chloro-sulfonated polyethylene.
• Oil Hose
Due to the use of unleaded gasoline and the development of the direction of high oxidation value, resulting in the corrosion of fuel to silicone, the inner layer of the fuel hose must have good fuel resistance. The inner rubber layer has been developed to use fluorine silicone, chloroethene silicone, or acrylate silicone instead of nitrile silicone to reduce the permeability of fuel and further improve the heat resistance of silicone rubber.
• Power Steering Hose
The development of automobiles has put forward the requirements of high heat resistance and high durability for the silicone rubber hose. The inner silicone rubber layer should have good oil resistance, and the outer layer should have wear resistance, heat resistance, weather resistance, and other characteristics. At present, the inner and outer layers of the hose have been converted from nitrile silicone and chloroprene silicone to hydrogenated nitrile silicone, chlorosulfonated polyethylene silicone, chlorinated polyethylene silicone, and acrylic silicone, and the reinforced layer is mainly nylon 66.
• Radiator Hose
With the development of the automobile to the direction of energy saving and low pollution, in recent years, the temperature of the engine has been increased by 15 ~ 50℃, so the heated hose produced by the sulfur sulfide system has been gradually replaced by the products produced by the peroxide system, the main material is EPDM silicone.
• Turbocharger Hose
The main requirement of the rubber hose is that it has good heat resistance. In many areas, turbocharged rubber hose currently uses a full silicone rubber structure, that is, the inner rubber layer is composed of fluorine silicone and good heat resistance silicone, the reinforced layer is composed of high strength aromatic amide fiber knitting, and the outer rubber layer is made of silicone.
• Air conditioning hose
At present, with the application of the new environmental refrigerant R134a, the structure and material of the air conditioning hose have changed a lot. The inner layer is made of resin and butyl chlorinated silicone and ethylene propylene diene silicone structure, which has a good use effect.
Silicone Rubber Seals for Automobiles
Silicone seal material is three ethylene propylene silicone, with the rapid development of the automobile industry, more and more new materials are used for automotive seal strips, especially the advantages of thermoplastic elastomer materials used for automotive seal strips are recognized by the industry. The main thermoplastic elastomer materials used in the automobile seal strip are polyene thermoplastic elastomer (TPV), which has good wear resistance and a small friction coefficient. It can not only be used as the extrusion material of the automobile glass guide groove seal strip, but also as the angle material of the automobile seal strip. In addition, water foam sponge TPV has been successfully developed in foreign countries, and has been widely used in the automobile silicone sealing strip, becoming a new trend to replace the sponge silicone to make the automobile sealing strip. In addition, the TPV coloring process is simple and convenient and is usually used as the exterior decoration material of the automobile silicone seal. At present, the production technology of color TPV and color silicone online co-extrusion coating silicone seal has been introduced and applied in several domestic automobile seal production enterprises.
Automotive Vibration Damping Silicone Products
The products mainly include silicone springs, silicone air springs, rack beams, engine suspension shock absorbers, torsional dampers, and so on. Silicone rubber plays an important role in limiting vehicle emissions, reducing noise, and improving ride comfort and safety. With the rapid development of the automobile industry, the requirements for safety, comfort, and driving are higher. The amount of automotive vibration reduction silicone products increased year by year, in 2008, the automotive vibration reduction silicone products market demand is about 150 million only, and the future production of high-grade cars increased, the automotive vibration reduction silicone products market demand grew faster, so the demand for materials is diversified.
However, it is necessary to choose according to the different parts of the product used, from the consideration of fatigue resistance and creep properties, natural silicone rubber is more selected; If you want to improve its heat resistance, choose butadiene silicone; If dynamic heat generation is small, you can choose butadiene silicone; If silicone vibration reduction products at work with all kinds of oil media contact, nitrile silicone is your choice. Due to more stringent restrictions on automobile exhaust emission standards, the temperature of the engine and exhaust pipe increases, and the silicone rubber for these parts needs to use EPDM silicone with high heat resistance.
It is predicted that in the next ten years, the demand for organic silicone products will be far greater than in the current market. From the current global trend, we can see that environmental safety issues have been attached importance to every country in the world, and the future of industry wants to continue to develop and maintain for a long time, there has to be some connection to environmental protection and safety.
