Schwalbach, Germany -- Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics are emerging as a strong technology able to address major industry needs (reduced CO₂ emissions, increased fuel efficiency) delivering significant light weighting. Key challenges of CFRP remain the affordability for large vehicle builds and robust assembly technologies. Dow Automotive Systems is responding to these needs with a number of solutions to support CFRP as the new lightweight material. With VORAFORCE and BETAFORCE it launches a new generation of composite resins and adhesives that cover the material side as well as the joining aspect.

VORAFORCE are ultra fast curing composite resins with a demoulding time of below three minutes. With this Dow Automotive supports a mass production capable solution for CFK parts.

BETAFORCE adhesives complement VORAFORCE by providing the appropriate joining technology for Composite Parts with its unique properties by managing structural and flexibility aspects and enabling significant process improvements.

Another potential gap of CFRP structures is represented by completely different acoustic behaviour vs. metals. BETAFOAM acoustic cavity filling foam as well as the range of Dow Automotive Acoustic solutions (SPECFLEX and ENGAGETM/NORDEL) offer another set of tools to manage specific acoustic issues from CFRP. Structural BETAFOAM helps to reinforce CFK structures to meet OEM crash requirements.