Lanxess has provided a range of polyamides reinforced with a high glass fiber content to replace metal in two air filter carriers, which will be installed in the Mercedes-Benz Actros starting early in 2017.
These structural parts are made of Durethan AKV 50 H2.0, a polyamide 66 with a glass fiber content of 50 percent by weight. They are the first plastic carriers to be used as load-bearing structural elements in a truck air filter system from Mercedes-Benz.
‘The advantage of our structural material is that it significantly reduces costs compared to the previous component design in steel, but still meets the high demands on dynamic strength,’ said Jürgen Horstmann, key account manager at Lanxess. ‘In addition, the weight of the components can be reduced by a total of 2.9 kilograms, or considerably more than 50%.’ The air filter, together with the fender mounted below it, weighs 7.9 kilograms at installation. In operation, the weight of this assembly can increase as a result of dust in the air filter and dirt on components in the wheel arch. The two filter carriers must not only bear this weight and that of the fender attached to them, but also withstand the extremely high dynamic forces to which they are exposed, for example vibrations caused by hitting deep potholes on construction sites. The requirement for component design was that the plastic carriers had to display the same stiffness as the previous steel carriers. Significant savings compared to the steel version resulted from directly bolting the filter to the carriers, eliminating the need for bushings, the company says.
This story is reprinted from material from Lanxess, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.
