Search Results

Thermoplastic polyurethane/ABS blends are being developed by The Dow Chemical Company to meet the high performance requirements for flexible bumper fascia. Features of these blends include paintability without priming, excellent low temperature impact after painting, good heat resistance, and lower specific gravity than other high performance thermoplastic materials. Thermoplastic polyurethane/ABS blends also have excellent flow properties, which will allow large, complex parts with thin walls to be molded easily.

A new family of high heat stable, few gloss ABS resins has been developed specifically to offer the automotive industry improved performance in molded interior trim parts. The new resins offer excellent fabrication and property performance similar to that of standard-heat low gloss ABS resins. Advantages over current high heat ABS resins include improved injection moldability, greater resistance to heat warping and to U.V. degradation, improved color stability, improved toughness, and consequent good finished part economics while maintaining equivalent heat resistance. Physical property and testing-evaluation data are provided.

With the introduction of high purity corrosion resistant magnesium alloys and also the re-emphasis of quality products throughout the industrial world, the need for more accurate and more reproducible analysis between laboratories has become apparent. The availability of high quality analytical standards was one of the principle obstacles to achieving analytical agreement between laboratories. This presentation briefly reviews what until recently was available to the industry and their customers with respect to analytical methods and analytical standards and their limitations in today's quality conscious world. The development of a new series of die cast magnesium standards by The Dow Chemical Company is also described in this paper including their compositional design considerations relating to the selection of the modern direct reading emission spectrometer as the analytical instrument of choice.

Environmental regulations, energy conservation considerations, and consumer pressures have influenced significant changes in automotive design. Some of these changes have created environments that are particularly detrimental to elastomers. A specific example of this is the automotive underhood environment. Due to “downsizing”, front wheel drive and better aerodynamics, the already harsh environment of fuels, oils and chemicals has been accelerated by increased underhood temperatures. These increased temperatures have pushed many commonly used elastomers to their limit. This paper discusses the attributes of chlorinated polyethylene elastomers and how they fit into the increasingly demanding automotive underhood environment.

New efforts to improve quality control through the use of Statistical Quality Control techniques were introduced to the Dow Magnesium Extraction Process. All the employees in the magnesium plants were trained in the Statistical Quality Control procedures. Successful application has lead to improved chemical purity and reduced variability in the feed process. These improvements were followed by better reduction cell operation, improvements in alloying and casting operations. Consistent quality, high purity magnesium alloys are now available for use in automotive applications.

Cushioning and load distribution performance of plastic foams was investigated, using a human faceform as the loading object. A technique for measuring contact surface between faceform and plastic foam was developed. Transferrable paint applied to the foam facilitated determination of average stress over its surface, which in turn was employed to evaluate load distribution properties of the foam. Impact and static testing results on several plastic foams were analyzed. It was found that a good cushioning material characterized by low peak deceleration might show high average stress, thus making it an inefficient load distributor. The faceform used in the study incorporates the effect of face geometry during loading and thus provides a realistic simulation. Variation of material response with loading geometry and possible correlation between load distributing properties and rigidity of the foam are also discussed.