The Automotive Applications Development Center in Auburn Hills, Michigan, is a production-scale laboratory where we can duplicate the conditions our products will see in a customer’s plant. At the Center we can process, paint, and test alternative materials to determine with confidence which will best produce finished parts. This unique development resource can help our customers shorten program schedules by weeks or months.
The Center is equipped with a 4,000-ton injection molding press that can accommodate the largest automotive parts, such as bumper fascias or vertical body panels. The press can handle such advanced processes as coinjection, tri-injection, gas-assist, in-mold film, structural foam, and hybrid processes such as injection-compression.
A complete profile extrusion line supports the development of materials intended for commercial use in applications such as weatherseals. Three extruders of various sizes can feed a multi-port die to validate designs of all-polyolefin replacements for conventional metal-and-thermoset seal profiles.
