Efficient and Reliable Process for Pretreating Structural Joining Surfaces
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Efficient and Reliable Process for Pretreating Structural Joining Surfaces In the automotive industry, more and more assemblies are being bonded in order to save resources and ensure efficient production. However, pretreating the joining surfaces beforehand in a reliable process is an essential step. The 'quattroClean' technology has several advantages over other dry cleaning methods.
The struggle to reduce the weight of vehicles has been preoccupying automobile manufacturers for some time now and is becoming increasingly important as the trend towards e-mobility advances. The installation of more active and
passive safety devices, the growing number of electronic components and assemblies, and last but not least the batteries needed for electric cars, add extra kilos. And the more a vehicle weighs, the higher the fuel consumption and CO 2 emis-
sions, or the shorter the range of batterypowered cars. OEMs and suppliers are turning to lighter materials such as aluminum and plastics for body parts such as doors, roofs, trunk lids, tailgates and engine hoods. Changes in manufacturing and joining methods used in series productions – such as bonding instead of welding, riveting or screwing – also help to slim vehicles down. To guarantee the required adhesive strength when bonding structural body parts or battery housings, for example, the joining surfaces must meet high cleanliness and wettability requirements.
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Dry, partial cleaning instead of a wet chemical process
Figure 1 > The patented technology with two-component ring nozzle for CO2 and jacketed jet of compressed air achieves consistent and uniform cleaning results – even in automated solutions.
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Conventional wet-chemical cleaning processes with water-based media or solvents are not suitable for such tasks for various reasons. On the one hand, these processes are unable to achieve the significantly higher level of cleanliness required for some parts of the joining surface compared to the rest of the component. Major cleaning efforts are needed to attain the same high level of cleanliness for the entire component and are thus correspondingly cost-intensive. On the other hand, integrating these processes into a production or assembly line is very difficult to realize, even if only
Snow for clean, residue-free surfaces The cleaning medium used is environmentally neutral liquid carbon dioxide that is gained as a by-product from chemical processes and from the generation of energy from biomass. It is fed through a patented, wear-free two-component ring nozzle and expands on exiting to form fine CO2 snow. This core jet is then bundled by a separate jacketed jet of compressed air and accelerated to supersonic speed. When the easily-focused jet of snow and compressed air impacts on the surface to be cleaned, a combination of thermal, mechanical, sublimation and solvent effects occur. The interaction of these four mechanisms of action (Figure 1) reproducibly removes particulate (e.g. dust, chips, abrasion, microburrs) and fi
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