JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #138 - January/February 2021 - 22

MANUFACTURlNG lightweighting

Honeycomb cores for the automotive industry

Mona Boche-Würfel,
Marketing & Communications Manager
Dr. Jochen Pflug,
CEO
ThermHex Waben GmbH

Automotive engineers are searching for cost-efficient, lighweight
and CO2-neutral solutions for plastics engineering applications in the
fields of exterior and interior parts. The importance of sustainable
and weight reducing materials is increasing steadily and affordable
construction materials are a requirement for competitive future mobility.
Continuously produced honeycomb cores are becoming more and more
popular as core material for sandwich composites in the automotive
industry as they meet the strict criteria that are set for new materials
by the companies or by governements.

pliers of parts for passenger cars to use
honeycomb sandwich panels for complex
lightweight automotive components.

andwich panels are the ideal solution
where lightweight construction is
required. By using a lightweight
honeycomb core material that keeps two
thin skin layers apart, higher rigidity and
strength can be achieved with less material
than with only one monolithic material.
This results in significant weight savings of
more than 80%, plus considerable potential for material cost savings. An advantage
that the automotive industry knows how
to benefit from: for example, the panels of
modern truck bodies and trailers usually
consist of a lightweight, plastic-based core
and skin layers of fibre-reinforced plastics.
Processing improvements enable sup-

" Made in Germany "
honeycomb cores
ThermHex offers automotive manufacturers and part suppliers thermoplastic honeycomb cores made of polypropylene as
a strong, yet flexible lightweight material.
The standard vol-ume weight is 80 kilograms per cubic metre. A lighter core with
a density of 60 kilograms per cubic metre
is also suitable for applications with lower
demands on compressive strength. The
thickness of the honeycomb cores ranges
from 3 to 28 millimetres - the cell sizes
are 3 to 9.6 millimetres. The ThermHex
honeycombs have a half-opened surface
that, in combina-tion with various surface

Black honeycomb
core ©Thermhex

jec composites magazine / N°138 January - February 2021

finishes, enables an optimal connection
between core and skin layer in the subsequent sandwich element. Small cells also
enable perfect surface finish.The honeycomb panels are produced by extrusion
of thermoplastic polymers into a film,
rotational vacuum forming and a folding
process. The patented continuous in-line
pro-cess, in which various skin layers can
also be applied to the honeycomb core, is
the best way to produce the panels cost-effectively. This is because other processes
require each layer of honeycomb to be
individually cut from a block and then
laminated. Customers then process the
honeycomb panels into finished components, for example by forming and cutting
them to size.
A Brazilian samba
with honeycomb cores
The automotive supplier DPA Molda-dos
is a customer of ThermHex. This automotive parts manufacturer from Itupeva, in
the Brazilian state of São Paulo, has been
devel-oping and manufacturing moulded
parts for over 20 years, which are used as
interior trim components, air ducts and for
thermal and acoustic insulation in various
types and brands of cars. Committed to
using innova-tive and sustainable materials
and products, DPA Moldados stands out
from the com-petition mainly because they
can produce moulded parts cost-effectively and in one piece. DPA Moldados also

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #138 - January/February 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #138 - January/February 2021