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News Release from: Smithers Rapra
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 19 December 2005
Polymer conference generates debate
The Second Rapra International Conference on polymers in automotive fuel containment generated a lot of discussion and questions among delegates.
The Second Rapra International Conference on polymers in automotive fuel containment generated a lot of discussion and questions among delegates The first two papers outlined the difficult environment for fuel systems, with Ralf Grunbaum of Volkswagen describing the legal, environmental and customer requirements for fuel systems
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 4 Aug 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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The main influences on the Passat fuel system were described as mechanical wear, system temperatures, refuel ability, electrical discharge, ventilation, fuel supply, pressure, safety, environmental legislation (affecting emissions) and fuel composition.
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Intertek's Caleb Brett followed up with an outline of global variations in fuel composition.
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ITT Industries has worked on materials for fuel lines to raise permeability levels and high temperature resistance.
Materials being tested include polyamide 12, PBT and the fluoroplastics ETFE and PVDF.
Phil Spencer of Asahi Glass also described the combination of ETFE and polyamide 12 in fuel lines.
Dow Corning presented fluorosilicones for hose.
Dupont gave a paper on peroxide-cured fluoroelastomers.
Polykemi introduced a nylon nanocomposite for injection and blow moulding fuel tanks, with the advantage of single material for recyclability.
Matrix Polymers described a rotational moulding technology to meet new legislation on fuel permeation.
The University of Michigan-Dearborn described tensile and creep behaviour of a blow-moulded multilayered fuel tank.
Jim Doty of Solvay Advanced Polymers talked about innovative plastics for fuel systems to meet increasing demands, for example, conductive polymers to dissipate static and new grades to overcome the increased fuel permeability caused by increasing levels of alcohol.
Amodel PPA -a high performance polyamide - was shown to have good barrier properties to toluene, ethanol and isooctane.
Didier Houssier of Eval Europe covered EVOH resins for fuel tanks.
IWV-3 described automotive fuel cells; www.h2cars.de lists the prototype cars to date.
The issues to tackle include costs, materials, hydrogen supply and performance.
Hydrogen storage is a key issue - liquefaction involves temperatures of -253C.
Greg Banyay of Ohio University described the potential use of polymer foams in hydrogen storage systems.
Testing is critical for fuel systems.
Nickie Smith of MERL covered testing methods for fuel permeation rates.
Diffusion-polymers.com described fuel permeation in a composite tank.
There are many regulatory drivers on fuel systems such as emissions and recyclability, plus an increase in the service temperatures and pressures, and changes in fuel formulation.
Fuel cell technology is taking off.
This is an area for rapid growth and development for polymeric materials and the conference will be run again in 2007.
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