The move from using mechanical fasteners to adhesive bonding
Adhesives are used in almost every industry. Yet transportation industries – including aerospace, automotive, and marine manufacturers – are leading in adopting the latest adhesive technologies. These industries have realised that adhesives are better for the environment and can reduce costs, time, and weight while preserving and/or improving performance.
Manufacturers are recognising when to choose adhesives over mechanical fasteners by looking for indicators in the manufacturing process and a product’s environment. Examples of some important indicators are when manufacturers need to bond different metals, and for metals to be exposed to thermal cycling. Adhesives are preferred when products will be exposed to water and/or chemicals that may damage or penetrate other mechanical fasteners.
Another popular reason to choose an adhesive of a mechanical fastener is to lower the weight of a finished products. For transportation industries reducing weight is very important. A slight reduction in an aircraft’s weight leads to a significant reduction in operational costs over the lifetime of a plane. Lowering the weight of cars and boats can lead to significant fuel savings. Any weight reduction could make a product more portable, reduce shipping costs, and allow for installing additional component parts that give a product new abilities and/or a competitive advantage.
Advantages of using a hot melt adhesive
Cost reduction
Cost savings from using an adhesive can be realised in several ways:
- Adhesives offer lower material costs per application than mechanical fasteners.
- Using adhesives reduces ordering, shipping, and stock costs. There is no need to stock screws and bolts of different shapes and sizes anymore.
- Labour costs for applying adhesives can be less than for other fastening methods.
Time reduction
Hot melts are preferred by many manufacturers because they can cool down quickly and dry almost instantly (unlike water-based and solvent-based adhesives), providing an ultra-fast method of bonding. This gives manufacturers the option to increase the speed on their production lines, making the entire manufacturing process more efficient. This is perhaps one of the biggest adhesive selling points. Furthermore, hot melt tanks can be turned on and off easily, or even left on standby, without the need to completely clean down or flush the system – another manufacturing win.
Weight reduction
Mechanical fasteners contain metal and metals are heavy in comparison to an adhesive’s lightweight polymers. Even the smallest metal components add a substantial amount of weight when several of them are needed. Adhesives can be a lot lighter than mechanical fasteners – up to 15%. Furthermore, they help to rigidify individual components with mechanical stress being evenly distributed along the full length of the bond whilst other mechanical fasteners focus the stress at the bond points. This concentration of stress creates problems for the substrates, requiring the entire component to be thicker or needing additional material to support the stress focused on each point.
Beardow Adams hot melt adhesives
We offer two ranges of hot melt adhesives that are suitable for use in construction and automotive industries: the Prodas™ hot melt adhesives range and the Pressen™ hot melt pressure sensitive adhesives range.
Prodas™
Our Prodas range of high-performance hot melt adhesives have set new standards in product assembly – meeting the demands of designers and engineers in the production of domestic, commercial, and industrial products.
The adhesives provide manufacturers with high adhesion, high temperature resistance, and the ability to bond cleanly and securely to most engineering materials. Prodas adhesives can be found in:
- Filter and filtration products
- Tile spacing
- Gasketing
- Construction and insulation
- Mattress and furniture assembly
We understand that hot melts enable manufacturers to noticeably improve product quality and appearance because they can dispense with nails, screws, and other unsightly fixings.
As an example, our adhesives for the filter industry have helped provide cleaner air and functional filtration products. Furthermore, our hot melts are used for tile spacing to separate tiles to protect their surface. The adhesives are made with non-staining material, as decorated surfaces must not be left with any residual marks, provide sufficient adhesion to remain in place during the production process, storage, and transportation, and are easy to remove on use.
Pressen™
Our Pressen hot melt pressure sensitive adhesives are used to produce self-adhesive tapes, label stock, closures, seal-strips, insulation, and other self-adhesive coatings. With only light pressure from a machine, or by hand, PSA materials can form a bond, being used for temporary and permanent applications. The availability of bio-based materials makes them a sustainable gluing option.
The natural elasticity of the pressure sensitives lets them move and flex within use; to absorb and then dissipate energy upon impact. Making them great for security closures as well as industrial uses. It also allows PSAs to excel at bonding dissimilar materials such as metals to plastic, foam to card, or wood to glass. The bonding of such materials can be done at different times and locations: tapes or self-adhesive coating can be applied in a factory, then bonded at site – simply by peeling and sticking.
Pressen adhesives are, for example, used for insulation, which involves a diverse range of substrates. Our Pressen 2007 is ideal for bonding plasterboard to insulation as it has good cold temperature performance and produces a good level of adhesion on a variety of substrates. The automotive industry uses our pressure sensitive adhesives for foam bonding and assembly, acoustic and vibration damping membranes, self-adhesive coil isolators, water shedders, and gasketing.
If you would like to know more about how our hot melt adhesives can work in your applications, please get in touch: marketing@beardowadams.com