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pps proceeding
Symposium: Foams & Lightweight Structures
Oral Presentation
 
 

Low Density Thermoplastics using High Strength Hollow Glass Microspheres (3M Glass Bubbles) as Lightweight Filler

Wolff Friedrich (1)*, Friedrich Stefan (1), Doering Marcel (2), Ruckebusch Jean-Marie (3), Yalcin Baris (4), Park Dae-Soon (5), Gangnus Bernd (1)

(1) 3M Germany - Burgkirchen - Germany, (2) 3M Germany - Neuss - Germany, (3) 3M France - Tilloy - France, (4) 3M USA - St. Paul - USA, (5) 3M Korea - Gyeonggi-do - Korea

Currently several strategies are prevalent in polymer industry to obtain lightweight thermoplastic parts. The most important ones are fiber reinforcement, thin walling and foaming. A completely new method for thermoplastics is the addition of a lightweight filler to reduce their density. While this is well established for thermosets this approach was not accessible for thermoplastics in the past due to the high requirements regarding the compression strength of the fillers. Recently, 3M introduced the new to the world high strength Glass Bubble grades iM30k and iM16k, which are engineered to survive thermoplastic injection moulding processes. They offer an excellent ratio of isostatic compressive strength (190 MPa or 110 MPa, respectively) to density (0.6 g/cm3 or 0.46 g/cm3, respectively). Whereas common fillers increase the compound density the application of Glass Bubbles decreases the density. This opens a huge potential for weight savings in e.g. automotive or aerospace applications helping to reduce fuel consumption. Details about the density reduction potential, the processing and the properties of Glass Bubble compounds will be presented. Besides the reduction of the compound density which may be up to 30% compared to current state-of-the-art materials, Glass Bubbles can provide additional features such as reduction of warpage and shorter cycle times in injection moulding.