TEXTILES.ORG
TenCate Advanced Composites and BASF have entered into a strategic alliance to cooperate on the development, production and commercialization of thermoplastic composite materials suitable for high-volume vehicle production.
The main goal of this partnership is to offer car manufacturers custom-engineered solutions for high-performance composite structures, to further reduce weight and carbon dioxide emissions. The growing need of the automotive industry for composite materials used in mass production calls for a rapid development of materials and manufacturing processes.
TenCate Advanced Composites has a leading market position in continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastic composites with the TenCate Cetex® product portfolio, currently mainly used for aircraft structures and interiors. At present, new aircraft such as the Airbus A380, A350 and Boeing 787 are the main users of such material. BASF is a leading chemical company, with an extensive network in the automotive industry.
Strategic alliance
BASF will contribute its comprehensive know-how in the production and formulation of thermoplastic resins in order to develop special variants of its Ultramid® (PA), Ultradur® (PBT) and Ultrason® (PESU) product lines. TenCate Advanced Composites joins in with their expertise in composite manufacturing. Both companies are dedicated to automotive composite materials (UD-tapes, prepregs and laminates) based on these specialty resin systems.
“The next major advance in lightweight automotive constructions will not be possible without a dramatic reduction in processing costs. This can be accomplished by using continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastic composites. The breakthrough for composites to mass production, however, has not yet been made. By working together with TenCate, we intend to jointly achieve this breakthrough,” said Melanie Maas-Brunner, new head of the Engineering Plastics Europe business unit of BASF in Germany.
“We are looking forward to this joint effort in making new materials rapidly available for automotive mass production,” said Frank Meurs, group director of TenCate Advanced Composites EMEA.