Araldite® adhesives have been selected by Norma Auto Concept Engineering to bond the components of a rear wing for a prototype sports car.
Founded in 1984 by Norbert Santos and Marc Doucet, whose names make up the brand name ‘Norma’ Auto Concept Engineering, the French-based business manufactures prototype vehicles for a range of racing, endurance and hill climb sports. The company has designed prototypes that have participated in a range of international automotive racing fixtures such as the 24 Hours of Daytona, 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Pike’s Peak International Hill Climb.
Providing a complete solution to effectively assemble the different substrates that form the wing structure, Araldite 2048 has been used to join the aluminium pieces together and Araldite 2031 joins the composites together and to the aluminium parts.
Providing excellent adhesion on a wide range of materials such as metals and thermoset composites, the epoxy adhesive Araldite 2031 delivers superior structural stability and flexibility to the application, along with gap filling properties that fulfil essential performance criteria in offering exceptional resistance to vibration. The methacrylate adhesive, Araldite 2048, adds to the quality of the application by providing high elongation and one of the highest lap shear strengths available, ensuring the effective management of dynamic loads. Other benefits Araldite 2048 brings to this application include good chemical resistance, ease of application and extremely high impact resistance, as well as elasticity at subfreezing temperatures.
Norbert Santos, Manager of Norma Auto Concept Engineering said, “The Araldite adhesives we selected provide high strength with easy handling and minimal to no surface preparation, streamlining the structure and manufacturing process as a whole. Araldite structural adhesives make it possible to easily optimise the use of similar and dissimilar materials in producing lighter structures with improved qualities, turning today’s design concepts into commercially viable propositions in the automotive sports sector and beyond.”
As the use of composites in combination with other materials increases in the pursuit to create lighter structures, structural adhesives will continue to support new design methods where greater manufacturing efficiencies and enhanced performance during application in service are essential. Where strength, low weight and versatility are required for wide ranging industrial applications and multiple material types, Araldite 2031 (epoxy adhesive) and Araldite 2048 (methacrylate adhesive) provide excellent examples of the most recent structural bonding solutions to fulfil this need.
