DuPont Performance Polymers recently installed a 3D Suction blow-molding machine and a 450-ton injection molding machine in Asia-Pacific to strengthen its application development capabilities in the region.
The 3D suction blow molding capability at Utsunomiya Technical Center (UTC) in Japan, in collaboration with Itochu Systech Corporation, helps DuPont better collaborate and drive air-duct development for automotive turbo charged engines.
DuPont also developed in-house simulation tools to predict the 3D suction process and tube twist in the mold to help ensure uniform wall thickness. This investment and the company's unique 3D suction blow molding simulation software will help customers optimize air duct design without physical prototyping.
The newly added 450-ton injection molding machine as well as a 3,800 square-foot DuPont Shanghai Innovation Center are co-located in the China R&D Center, which enhances the regional abilities to help automotive and consumer electronics customers bring innovation to market quickly and cost effectively.
"Our emphasis on design, materials and processing solutions reflects our holistic approach to collaborate with customers," said Woong Chung, technical service manager of DuPont Performance Polymers Asia Pacific. "The new injection molding equipment expands the tools and resources available to customers in China and Asia Pacific as we quickly develop and commercialize new components and systems. At the same time, the drive to improve collaboration is changing how we work together and we are seeing strong results as we have taken time, cost and risk out of the product development cycle."
One of the drivers behind the growth that affords these investments relates to increasing need for high performance, lightweight plastics to lower vehicle weight, which improves fuel economy and lowers CO2 emissions. The air duct market is rapidly growing due to global high d emand for turbo-charged engines.
In the handheld and consumer electronics market, the need for dduesign flexibility is driving designers to high-performance plastics so they can continue to refresh the look, feel and upgrade performance. The 450-ton injection molding machine can help design eng ineers support the thin-wall molding for handheld devices, test tooling, optimize processing technology, develop prototypes and access advanced CAE (computer-aided-engineering) capabilities on anisotropic properties characterization.
DuPont supports customer development processes through materials selection, design, processing, prototyping and testing. It can offer the worldwide connection for customers with a network of 10,000 DuPont scientists and application developers to meet regional and global needs.
