Bentley soapbox suspended in nylon
A
MTT Technologies Group product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Sep 29, 2004
One of MCP Tooling Technologies' newest prototyping systems was used in the production of the Bentley Soapbox Team's entry at this year's Goodwood Festival of Speed.
One of MCP Tooling Technologies' newest prototyping systems was used in the production of the Bentley Soapbox Team's entry at this year's Goodwood Festival of Speed.
The vehicle came second in what is one of the most popular events at the Festival - a great result for the whole team.
Anxious to compress the time between production of CAD data and finished parts, Bentley's Head of Concept Design, Jim Shaw, who is also team designer and driver, invited MCP to become involved in the production of around 20 mechanical parts for the vehicle.
This led to key components of the vehicle's suspension system being produced using MCP's new Nylon Casting System.
The process is already being used commercially by several major automotive manufacturers and is a brand new technology.
It enables nylon parts to be produced in a matter of days without the need for injection moulding and the associated cost and lead time required for the production of steel tooling.
Unlike other processes which produce porous nylon prototypes, MCP's Nylon Casting System produces fully dense parts in nylon 6 - including those with complex geometries and thin wall sections.
Current commercial applications include live hinges, air inlet manifolds, trims, brackets, and electrical housings.
When this type of nylon part is required for crash testing, it can be produced in a matter of days using this process.
The process has evolved from the basic vacuum casting process and involves casting a master model (the soapbox models were SLAs) in silicone rubber to produce a mould.
Using MCP's Nylon Module in a conventional vacuum casting machine, the nylon material is then cast in the silicone mould.
Demoulding takes place after just 6 minutes and parts demonstrate mechanical properties of those which have been injection moulded in nylon 6.
A range of comparative technical data on the three different formulations is available on request from MCP.
Although the soapbox's suspension arms and steering linkages were produced using this new process, the vehicle's seat pan was cast in a low melting point alloy.
MCP 137 is often used in fusable core technology and combines a density of 8.58 with high dimensional stability and mechanical strength.
This alloy was chosen to meet the crucial weight requirement and was vacuum cast in a silicone mould produced from the team's master model of the seat pan.
The largest soapbox component produced by MCP was the suspension yoke or carrier, which was made using the company's Metal Part Casting process.
This was a large complex part with many thin wall sections.
A silicone mould was produced from the SLA master which was then used to cast a wax model.
This process involves the encapsulation of the wax model in ceramic under vacuum, melting out of the wax, and then filling the cavity with metal, in this case aluminium.
The whole process can be achieved in less than 72 hours and produces highly accurate castings in zinc, aluminium, bronze or brass.
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