silicone in automotive industry?
silicone in automotive industry?
(OP)
hello, my name is aart schmid and i am working on a door sealing device. our customer produces doors and he also sells to the automotive industry. he states that silicone is unacceptable as a material because the automotive industry doesn't accept this material in the production environment (painting).
our silicone supplier states that after post curing silicone rubber the volatile molecules are fixed up to temperatures of 200 deg Celcius.
is this good enough, or isn't it?
Hope someone can help me,
Aart
our silicone supplier states that after post curing silicone rubber the volatile molecules are fixed up to temperatures of 200 deg Celcius.
is this good enough, or isn't it?
Hope someone can help me,
Aart





RE: silicone in automotive industry?
Are you talking about using silicone as a door/window sealing gasket or some other sealing "device"? It's unclear from your post what the purpose of the device is and how it is used.
Chumley
RE: silicone in automotive industry?
I will try to explain the application of the product:
We make a sealing device for fire and smoke-prevention doors. These doors are used in all kinds of environments. One of the environments in which it will be used is in the automotive industry. Our customer produces these doors.
So the product will not be used in the cars, but in the factory buildings.
I want to find some inside-information from the automotive-industry, because one of the requirements is that the materials used have to be accepted by the automotive industry. It is (too) easy to say that we should't use silicone rubber (like our customer does), because the temperatures during the testing of the smoke-prevention doors will exceed 200deg Celcius, and, unless we use silicone-rubber it is very hard to find a material that can withstand these conditions.
This is why I want to know if post-cured silicone rubber is an acceptable material according to the automotive-industry?
RE: silicone in automotive industry?
Testing a silicone elastomer sealed fire door anywhere near panels that later are to be painted probably is not a good idea.
RE: silicone in automotive industry?
Sometimes they add silicon to paint to make it more flexable, but also have to add something else so it won't go funny.
RE: silicone in automotive industry?
The problem in using silicone materials is that the versatile molecules that evaporate from the material can cause problems in area's where electronic circuits are made, or in area's where parts are painted.
What I have heard is that there is a method to postcure silicone, in order to make sure that no versatile molecules will evaporate. (Philips (consumer electronics) seems to use this type of silicone in electric razors.)
I want to find out if this postcured silicone can be used in the automotive industry (more specifically: area's where electronic circuits are made and area's where parts are painted).
My idea by submitting this thread was to get reactions from people within the automotive industry who have to do with painting and/or electronic area's and who are able to tell me if they know something about this material and if it's used more often in the industry,
Aart
RE: silicone in automotive industry?
If you properly post-cure the silicone then you should not have problems with volatiles.
I worked on a project previously where an injection moulded silicone product was causing skin reactions. It transpired that this was due to inadequate post-curing. We increased the time in the oven ensuring that the products were evenly spaced apart. This solved the problem.
Hope this is of some help.
Speedy
RE: silicone in automotive industry?
I hope I've helped.
John Schrock
www.glubie.com
RE: silicone in automotive industry?
this problem is not a problem anymore.
Our customer has exaggerated the requirements for the material a little. After doing a little testing ourselves we have found that temperatures will not exceed 160deg C, and the product doesn't have to meet any strength requirements at this temperature anymore: the only important thing is that the door still prevents draught of (hot) air, and can be opened without the use of tools.
So now we can use a TPE sealing profile.
Thanks to all who took time to help me,
Aart
RE: silicone in automotive industry?
If you were only worried about the high temperature issues ie during a fire I would suggest that there would be more pollutants in the atmosphere by then for your customer to be worried about form all the other combustable materials.
A way around the problem would be to try a material called Viton which can be used to either coat the exisiting rubber or just make the seals out of this material.
RE: silicone in automotive industry?
JOHN PATTERSON