The automobile industry is ushering in a great change once in a century. The "new four modernizations" - networking, automation, sharing and electrification are irresistible.

Looking around the world, Daimler, Volkswagen, Audi, BMW, Ford, Bentley and other companies are actively layout the transformation and upgrading of electric vehicles.

In China, the new energy vehicle industry development plan (2021-2035) released by the State Council points out that by 2025, the sales volume of new energy vehicles will reach about 20% of the total sales volume of new vehicles. This plan is to the new energy vehicle upstream and downstream industry chain to play a booster.

After the diesel locomotive is transformed into electric vehicle, the former engine and fuel components will no longer exist, and the electrical, electronic components and battery parts will be replaced. New requirements for the material properties of the parts are also put forward.

01 LCP shell enables intelligent power module to be miniaturized

For example, the new power control unit (PCU) can transform the voltage from the battery to the voltage of the driving motor. The driving force of the motor can be adjusted when driving at a constant speed and accelerating by cruise control.

The core part of the new power control unit (PCU) is the intelligent power module (IPM). The size of this IPM shell determines the size of the PCU as a whole. Keihin, a Honda auto parts supplier, has achieved the miniaturization of PCU through the technical innovation of IPM parts.

For the "shell" of the intelligent power module, it has the functions of heat resistance, insulation, soldering, bonding and gel sealing. In order to meet these requirements, the resin materials used must have high heat resistance, insulation failure strength, material strength, fluidity during molding and low outgassing property.

Especially about the heat resistance, in the IPM manufacturing process, including the shell must go through the soldering process, the surface temperature of the resin is very high, the resin material used must be able to withstand. The LCP laperos S135 of Baoli Plastics Co., Ltd. was finally selected by Keihin company to realize the miniaturization and high power output of IPM.

For the IPM shell, on the one hand, it is the molding product of laperos LCP resin, which has never been a large size. At the same time, the precision requirements of IPM shell are almost the same as those of small precision components such as connectors used so far. In addition, on the IPM shell, there are countless so-called busbar copper sheets crisscross each other, and the resin is covered on these crisscross copper sheet networks, and the composite with metal must meet the requirements of combination molding without using binder.

LCP products are faced with the problem of fusion strength. In the manufacturing process of IPM, it is necessary to ensure that the fusion part will not crack when heated. The flow analysis data provided by TSC (technology solution center) of poly plastics company has played a great role in solving this problem. As a matter of fact, the accumulated data of large LCP parts is very small, which is difficult to fully meet the needs. However, Keihin company and molding processing factory, together with three companies of poly plastics company, give full play to the role of data sharing, and finally overcome the problem of fusion strength and successfully develop the product.

02 The demand for high-speed and high-frequency transmission parts is increasing for automatic driving

On the other hand, ADAS (Advanced Driver assistance systems) components for automatic driving are increasing.

The automatic driving level is based on the definition of SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers). The level below L2 (partial driving Automation) belongs to ADAS, and the level above L3 belongs to automatic driving. The L2 is already available on the market. Needless to say, driving a car requires the driver to make "recognition, judgment and operation". Adas partly replaced these actions through the operation of various parts. If they are roughly classified, it can be said that "visual recognition" corresponds to sensors, "judgment" corresponds to ECU, and "operation" corresponds to actuators. In addition, the communication equipment supporting the parts that cannot be recognized by the sensor and the communication network connecting the parts also play an important role.

Adas components are composed of sensors monitoring the surrounding area, actuators executing actions, communication equipment between vehicles or between vehicles and infrastructure, and ECU (electronic control unit) that makes judgments. In addition, with the high development of ADAS, the amount of data received and received by each component increases, and high-speed communication becomes indispensable. With the further expansion of 5g communication in the future, it is expected that high-speed transmission parts and high-frequency transmission parts will also increase.

With the development of ADAS, the control function of some actuator parts is automatic, so the related products need to have high reliability. Therefore, more and more attention has been paid to redundancy in the design, such as dividing the power supply and signal circuits into two systems. This kind of change has put forward quite high request to the reliability, even if the actuator parts are installed in the harsh environment, they can not fail. The resins used in these parts also need high reliability (long service life).

03 The hydrolysis resistant PBT can meet the harsh application environment of actuator parts

If the parts installed under the vehicle are close to the road surface, they will be exposed to water, snow melting agent and oil on the road surface. In addition, due to close to the engine and motor and other hot parts, will encounter high temperature. Due to these environmental factors, many actuator parts choose PBT with high heat resistance, excellent chemical resistance and little change in water absorption characteristics.

Duranex 330hr, 531hs and 532ar of poly plastics can withstand this harsh environment, and are materials with excellent durability (hydrolysis resistance).

According to reports, the environment temperature under the vehicle is very high, and it will contact water and snow melting agent, which belongs to the environment where metal parts are easy to rust. Iron will not only corrode and rust, but also produce alkaline substances when it rusts. Contact of this alkaline substance with the resin parts may cause cracks (stress cracking) in the resin. In order to prevent this kind of stress cracking, it is necessary to take any of the following measures: ① use alkali resistant resin; ② take anti-corrosion measures for metal. Grade 532ar is resistant to alkaline substances, and it is not easy to cause stress cracking even if the rust liquid of metal contacts the resin part, so it is very suitable for the parts installed under the vehicle.

04 Duranex? PBT 750am with flame retardancy and dimensional stability

With the electrification of vehicles, the requirement of flame retardant resin is increasing year by year. Many flame retardant resins are used in motors, batteries and charging parts that produce high voltage. In addition, flame retardant resins have also been used in data communication equipment for v2x (vehicle to everything) in recent years. V2x is a function required for the practical application of automatic driving (SAE L3 or above). It is expected that more and more vehicles will be equipped with this function in the future. Engineering plastics are used in the case and connector of the data communication equipment. In addition to flame retardancy, these engineering plastics also need high durability and high dimensional accuracy in vehicle environment.

Duranex, the product of poly plastics, has obtained the grade of flame retardant material certification (V-0 in UL standard), and has been adopted by many vehicle parts. Especially duranex 750am has high durability in vehicle environment. In addition, the function of stabilizing the shell and connector shape is added, which is more and more popular in automobile parts which require flame retardant in recent years.

According to poly plastics, duranex 750am has the full durability and high shape stability required by the automotive industry, and is very suitable for EV, HEV parts, communication equipment, etc.