Recent Approaches for Saving Energy in Automotive Painting 1999-01-3188

The automotive painting process has two purposes, the protection of materials such as car body steel and the improvement of the vehicles overall appearance. These purposes are accomplished by applying a paint film with a thickness 0.1mm. However, in order to obtain this thin film, “painting” and “drying” is repeatedly done while using the paint booths and ovens which consume a lot of energy. As a result, the painting process utilizes the highest amount of energy in the manufacturing process of automobiles.The CO2 emission level in 2,000 must be below the level in 1,990, as a result of the Conference of Parties, Second Session (COP2). Although, great efforts have been expended trying to achieve this goal in the paint shop, still more efforts are required. While explaining the current status of the energy consumption in the paint shop, I will describe the most effective measures for saving energy, which are the reduction of the number of processes and the reduction of the paint booths energy usage.