Three-way effort on robotic gasketing.Three-Way Effort on Robotic Gasketing A joint effort between a resin supplier, a processor and one of the country's Big Three auto makers has led to an unusual achievement in robotically dispensed, formed-in-place silicone gasketing on a nylon timingbelt cover assembly that helps reduce under-the-hood noise. Late last year, Dow Corning Dow Corning is a multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, USA. Dow Corning specializes in silicon and silicone-based technology, offering more than 7,000 products and services. Dow Corning is equally owned by The Dow Chemical Company and Corning, Inc. Corp., Midland, Mich., and custom molder mold·er v. mold·ered, mold·er·ing, mold·ers v.intr. To crumble to dust; disintegrate. v.tr. To cause to crumble. See Synonyms at decay. Cascade Engineering, Grand Rapids Grand Rapids, city (1990 pop. 189,126), seat of Kent co., SW central Mich., on the Grand River; inc. 1850. The second largest city in the state, it is a distribution, wholesale, and industrial center for an area that yields fruit, dairy products, farm produce, , Mich., teamed up with General Motors' Powertrain Div. in Warren, Mich., in an effort to find a way to seal the timing belt cover for the auto maker's new 3.4-liter, twin-dual-cam engine offered in its W series vehicles. The line of cars includes Chevy's Lumina Lumina may refer to:
GM wanted to use silicone rubber Noun 1. silicone rubber - made from silicone elastomers; retains flexibility resilience and tensile strength over a wide temperature range synthetic rubber, rubber - any of various synthetic elastic materials whose properties resemble natural rubber seals for the covers, but existing formed-in-place or molded gaskets were not suitable for this application since it requires the four pieces of the cover to be mounted both vertically and horizontally and would need more man-hours than were economically feasible to produce one gasket. The desire to use silicone led GM to Dow Corning, which just happened to be in the process of developing new liquid silicone rubbers for the powertrain market. As part of this project, the company was also exploring methods to precisely dispense these materials. Dow Corning's research resulted in the creation of a new Q4-2311 gasket compound - a low-modulus, two-component, heat-cured silicone capable of unprimed adhesion to most substrates. The new compound eliminated the priming step by having the adhesion chemistry built into it. At the same time, Dow Corning was working with Cascade Engineering and Robotics Inc. of Ballston Spa, N.Y., to develop a dispensing system specifically for the timing-belt assembly cover. What came out of this cooperative effort is a cured-in-place process where a gasket is applied by a robotic dispensing unit and heat-cured to permanently attach it to the nylon cover. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a Dow Corning spokesman, most robots previously used in gasketing applications have served to pick-and-place already molded gaskets. Use of a robot to perform cured-in-place gasket production is possibly a first, the company says. Another claimed first is coupling heat-cured silicone rubber to a thermoplastic A polymer material that turns to liquid when heated and becomes solid when cooled. There are more than 40 types of thermoplastics, including acrylic, polypropylene, polycarbonate and polyethylene. . (However, a demonstration of injection molding injection molding n. A manufacturing process for forming objects, as of plastic or metal, by heating the molding material to a fluid state and injecting it into a mold. a nylon cover together with a silicone gasket in the same machine was given at the JP 88 show in Osaka, Japan, by Nissei Plastic Industrial Co. - see PT, Jan. '89, p. 60.) Use of a robot to dispense the silicone offers not only faster assembly times, but the flexibility to accommodate future design changes to the timing-belt assembly cover. PHOTO : A robotic dispensing system and new silicone rubber have allowed General Motors to manufacture four-piece timing-belt covers economically. (Photo: Dow Corning) |
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