Adhesive bonding systems growth

St. Paul, Minnesota-based H.B. Fuller Co.’s $225 million purchase of TONSAN Adhesives Inc. expands its automotive offerings in complex powertrain adhesives applications. Matthew McGreevy, global business director – Automotive Adhesives at H.B. Fuller, discusses adhesive use trends and how his company’s expansion should help automakers.

TMV: Tell us about H.B. Fuller’s automotive adhesives business.

MM: We are a manufacturer of high-performance sealing and bonding solutions for automotive applications, primarily for powertrain, interior and exterior trim, and exterior lighting. In addition to serving automotive manufacturers, we also serve the heavy machinery market including agriculture and construction equipment.

TMV: How has that portfolio changed with the addition of TONSAN?

MM: TONSAN, the largest independent engineering adhesives provider in China, brings additional expertise and industry know-how and broadens our technology range to include silicone, epoxy, anaerobic, cyanoacrylate technologies, and modified sylis (MS) polymer. It also complements and deepens our existing know-how in polyurethanes, epoxies, and hot melts used primarily in automotive interiors and exterior headlamps. Equally important is the state-of-the-art manufacturing, research and development, and technical capabilities we acquired.

TMV: With vehicle lightweighting, adhesives have been playing a larger role in body and structural components, especially in aluminum. Where does H.B. Fuller see that trend going?

MM: Mass reduction is much more than a trend – it’s a way of life, a competitive imperative for automotive manufacturers. It touches all parts of the vehicle from the structure to the cabin and affects performance, durability, environmental impact, cost, and aesthetics. To us this means new materials or combinations of materials to be bonded or sealed and often requires a new adhesive solution. The real challenge is to provide a full assembly processing solution that meets or exceeds performance requirements while being effective, efficient, reliable, safe, and simple.

In China, the electric vehicle industry is focused on this movement towards aluminum. The electric bus, for example, is a rapidly growing business and manufacturers use aluminum to cover the skeleton and main body of the vehicle. Through TONSAN, we provide a single-component polyurethane structural bonding adhesive solution. We also are working on developing next-generation structural adhesives with high strength and toughness specifically for aluminum bonding applications. Many vehicle manufacturers are also trying to use fiber-reinforced polymers to replace metal materials, and we’re supporting them. Our innovations include structural bonding for tailgates made of glass-fiber-reinforced polymers and structural bonding for components made of carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers.

TMV: How is the lightweighting trend influencing your investments?

MM: It starts with strengthening our human capital and technical expertise. Our acquisition of TONSAN was the largest investment made by H.B. Fuller in 2015 and is the largest investment of any company in China in the past year.

We’ve invested heavily in creating a culture of service and collaboration that goes beyond new product introductions. During the past few years, we’ve upgraded our manufacturing and R&D facilities around the world in order to build stronger partnerships with customers. In 2014, we opened 10 new or refurbished facilities in China, Colombia, France, Germany, Italy, and Portugal.

TMV: What are the biggest challenges of powertrain adhesives?

MM: Contaminants, heat, and vibration are the biggest challenges to strong, long-lasting adhesion in powertrain applications. In order to design and produce high-performance powertrain adhesives, we take the proactive approach of partnering with vehicle manufacturers early in the design process in order to truly understand their challenges.

TMV: What advantages can adhesives bring compared to mechanical joining techniques such as welding and bolting?

Unlike a nut or bolt, adhesives distribute stress to a broader surface, improving durability and vibration resistance. Adhesives also offer advantages when surfaces to be bonded are irregularly shaped. The properly selected and applied adhesive will be far more resistant to degradation than metal fasteners and will weigh less.

With increasing frequency, lighter versions of commonly used materials are more heat sensitive than their predecessors. An example is the welding or bolting of lighter and thinner metals. Those techniques create too much stress on one area, diminishing the integrity and quality of the materials. This leads to electrochemical corrosion between the different materials being joined and poor anti-fatigue. After assembly, an adhesive bond, on the other hand, will be more dimensionally stable when subjected to temperature swings.

H.B. Fuller Co.

www.hbfuller.com