Moving forward with innovations

摘要

An area of focus for reducing weight and cost has been the door core modules and critical seals.With the robotic extrusion of ExxonMobil Chemical's Santoprene thermoplastic vulcanisate(TPV),using technology from Reis Extrusion,TPV seals were produced by Tier One supplier Faurecia for Chrysler's 2007 Dodge Nitro and 2008 Jeep Liberty.This method reduces assembly costs and logistics yet improves seal performance with the Santoprene able to adhere to a lower weight glass-reinforced PP.Typically,door seals are manufactured by a moulder using EPDM and then manually assembled on to the module,which is both time consuming and expensive.Alternatively,a system supplier can apply a PU foam seal,which takes time to cure and has limited profile geometry.