Silicone rubber for automotive parts

High-quality rubber silicone for advanced automotive parts

The automotive industry, which currently produces up to 80 million vehicles per year, is constantly innovating and demanding new high-performance applications, both under the hood and elsewhere in the car. These new advanced automotive parts are often designed to reduce weight and fuel consumption, thereby leading to smaller and more compact engine compartments, The reduced space results in higher temperatures and more stress to vital parts because of higher air pressure, greater water flow, more powerful fuel injection and corrosive fluids.

Traditional materials often have trouble dealing with these high temperatures and aggressive conditions. However, our HCR (high-consistency rubber) and LSR (liquid silicone rubber) products can withstand extreme temperatures of up to 300 ⁰C intermittently (or more with specific additives), and are therefore ideal for a wide range of critical parts.

Advanced silicones for automotive applications are designed to achieve the best balance between tear resistance and compression set at high temperatures. Furthermore, these silicone products are easy to use in a wide range of processes, such as extrusion, calendering or injection molding, in line with customers’ industrial setups.

Applications of HCR silicones

Advanced HCR silicones are ideal for use in a great variety of high-performance automotive parts:

• Gaskets
• Hoses
• Spark plug boots
• Wire and cable
• Seals
• Dampers
• Connectors
• Rain and distance sensors
• Protection caps
• Headlamp and sun-roof gaskets
• Turbo-compressor valves.

Silicone HCR formulations are perfectly adapted to the above applications, because they offer the following features:

• Ease of use – suitable for steam pressure, salt bath and hot air vulcanization, depending on the process deployed (calendering, extrusion, compressing molding, etc.) and therefore versatile enough to produce different parts based on new design features
• Heat stability, capable of resisting temperatures from –60 °C to 300 °C or more
• Reliable insulation and mechanical performance (including long-term vibration resistance) that outperforms standard organic polymers, with high heat and fire resistance, low smoke emissions and non-corrosive and non-toxic combustion gases.

Rubber General Guide

Silicone Elastomer Grades for Rubber Applications

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Applications of liquid silicone rubber

Our LSR products are ideal for use in the following applications:

• Robust general-purpose range
• Specialty grades including oil bleed for connectors and self bonding for overmolded applications in the cabin
• Heat stability, capable of resisting temperatures from –60 °C to 300 °C or more
• Ease of use: Injection-moldable, high efficiency, high productivity
• Sustainability: Outperforms standard organic polymers (lasting the life of the vehicle)
• Damping characteristics to reduce vibration noise.

The Elkem difference

Our technical service laboratories provide advice for defining and optimizing processes at all stages for automotive parts manufacturers. Teams of specialized technicians, who have the expertise to propose the right silicones materials for specific automotive applications, provide technical support for mass production.

Rubber solutions for the automotive industry

Constant innovation in the automotive industry generates new needs and applications, under the hood and in all parts of the car.

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