The trend towards lightweight products is a result of principle market drivers like cost-optimization, functionality, and emissions reduction. The transportation sector (cars, trucks, trains, planes, buses and boats) focuses on weight reduction given the desire for reduced fuel consumption, saving manufacturers money and energy. Reducing CO2 emissions while increasing payloads also weighs heavily on this sector as companies are trying to reduce their carbon footprint.
Lightweighting is implemented by either replacing materials, components or packaging material with a lighter weight alternative or by cutting down the amount of material used. With lighter materials in weight and volume, transportation vehicles can create savings while conserving natural resources.
Voyaging Forward
Armacell paved the way for lightweighting by supplying the first polyethylene terephthalate (PET) foam, ArmaForm, to the wind turbine industry in 2006, but we did not stop there. The lightweight truck market, for example, utilizes PET sandwich composites for body structures such as side walls and flooring panels. Usually, these structures are made of heavier wood, polyurethane foams and polypropylene honeycomb. Superior thermal insulation properties make our ArmaForm Eco product especially beneficial for food carriers and refrigerated trucks by providing lower energy operating costs and a reduced environmental impact. ArmaForm products can replace hefty materials with a lighter alternative and provide high structural integrity, impact resistance, cost-efficiency, recyclability and process ability.
The stronger and stiffer ArmaForm Core based panels are self-supporting structures, eliminating the need for dense bulkheads and cross-members needed in PUR and honeycomb construction. Because ArmaForm Core is strong and durable, it also allows for direct application of fasteners and screws into the sandwich panels without adding extra wooden parts for reinforcement, another way weight reduction can improve the insulation performance. Last but not least, with its continuous service temperature of +300°F, ArmaForm Core can withstand higher temperatures and pressure during the production cycle.
Recyclability and Sustainability
With recyclability weighing more and more heavily on OEMs' and manufacturers' choices of core materials, Armacell can help alleviate those concerns with our PET ArmaForm line. Since ArmaForm is made from 100% post-consumer recycled beverage bottles, it offers a more sustainable and recyclable solution that also helps reduce CO2 production and keeps tons of plastic waste out of landfills.
Armacell PET Products
ArmaForm Core are structural foam boards used in wide range of composite sandwich applications ranging from rotor blades, train floors, building envelopes, truck bodies, boat hulls to radomes.
ArmaForm Foil are thin flexible PET sheets designed to provide a highly sustainable and improved alternative to cross-linked polyethylene (XPE) and polypropylene (XPP) products in thermoforming applications. Among others, in the automotive industry PET Foil is used in door water shields and roof liners.
ArmaShape are loose PET beads for the manufacturing of lightweight and strong foam cores on industrial scale, producible in nearly any shape. In the automotive industry our particle foams are designed for car body or chassis application.
For more information on Armacell’s line of PET products visit: https://local.armacell.com/en/armaform-pet-foam-cores/