Luca Cornero, R&D product development engineer at FCA Italy discusses the GALM Joining, Forming & Manufacturing Technologies conference.
This year’s event will cover the joining and manufacturing progress of existing and future technologies for dissimilar material body structures. The increasing use of lightweight materials and multi-material structures has the need of smart joining technologies, and in my opinion adhesive bonding for composites structures is one of the best solution to assemble different components. As for multi-material structures, adhesive bonding is allowing us to couple different materials accommodating and avoiding problems brought by the combination of different properties; for example the difference in thermal expansion or galvanic corrosion. The only unknown is how to easily take them apart for serviceability, reparability and recyclability: that’s the main focus of my project.
There are several important factors to consider when making a decision about composite material joining. It depends on the application and the market; for example, if the engineer is planning to manufacture an automotive structure in high volume they will have to take into account the repairability and recyclability at the end of vehicle’s life. In such a way they can select the most appropriate technology, material and assembly strategy. For example, a de-bondable joint will allow them to cope with those problems and manufacture a vehicle that has lower impact on costumers costs.
This story is reprinted from material from GALM, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.
