Automotive

As the world economy grows, the automotive market also continues to grow and the demand for improved performance and reliability offer many design challenges. The automotive components have to work at very harsh and aggressive conditions. Due to several regulations the temperatures under the hood are increasing and these severe thermal cycling induces tremendous stress on the components. Oil and chemical attack, water and humidity are also important considerations around the engine compartment. These factors challenge the design engineers who are striving to make the component protection a top most priority.

In addition to sustaining their physical and electrical properties over a broad range of operating conditions, sili¬cones are resistant to ozone and ultraviolet degradation, have good chemical stabil¬ity and are available in a variety of use¬ful forms as conformal coatings, en¬ca¬psulants, coatings and potting materials. Our broad range of general purpose and specialty products offers you a choice of materials for your application needs.

Useful Temperature Ranges

For most uses, silicone potting and encapsulating materials should be operational over a tempera¬ture range of - 45 to 200°C for long periods of time. However, at both the low and high temper¬ature ends of the spectrum, behavior of the materials and perfor¬mance in particular applications can become more complex and require additional considerations.

automotive

Automotive Applications of Silicones

  • Airbags
  • EV Battery Seals
  • Engine gaskets
  • Ignition cables
  • Headlamps
  • HT Cables
  • Grommets
  • Turbo hoses
  • Radiator seals
  • Electronic encapsulants, coatings and gels
  • Vibration dampening
  • Ventilation flaps
  • All Silicone Spark plug boots

Silicone Encapsulants & Coatings

Performance Polymers have an extensive range of silicone based potting materials and encapsulants used for the protection of electronic components used in the automotive industry. These materials vary in their flow behavior, mechanical performance and cure speeds. The product portfolio also includes conformal coatings on high performance PCB's for extra protection in the harsh operating conditions. The new additions to this group are thermally conductive encapsulants that will help maintain performance and extend product life.

Applications for Potting, Encapsulants and Coatings:

  • General potting Applications: power supplies, connectors, sensors, industrial controls, transformers, amplifiers, high voltage resistor packs, relays; encapsulants for solar cells
  • Potting Electro Magnets used in steel plants
  • Encapsulating electronic devices and control units
  • Encapsulating and sealing sensors
  • LED encapsulation
  • Photovoltaic Encapsulation

For more information see our silicone encapsulants product page

Silicone Gels

Silicone gels are formulated to form a very soft semi-cured elastomer. These gels can provide the best environmental protection and are able to absorb damaging vibration. Harder, high modulus potting materials combined with extreme thermal cycling within the engine compartment will induce stresses on the sensitive electrical connections and lead to component failure. This problem can be addressed effectively by using a silicone gel.

Another interesting feature of silicone gels made by Performance Polymers is that these gels are manufactured by careful selection of polymers and employing good manufacturing practices and therefore have very low volatile content and can be used to for the protection of gas sensors located in the engine compartment which are sensitive to volatile materials escaping from encapsulants.

Some of our soft silicone gels are “Self Healing” Type, enabling reworking very expensive components and also offer benefits of being able to remove the gel without damaging the PCB or electronics. Our Silicone gels have low viscosities and simple to use mix ratios and thereby ensure fast, efficient and error free production of the electronic assemblies.

Applications for gels include:

  • Encapsulating electronic control units
  • Encapsulating and sealing sensors
  • LED encapsulation

For more information see our silicone encapsulants product page