Weight Reduction in the Transportation Market through Low Density SMC

The purpose of this paper is to present the current European status on low-density sheet moulded composite (SMC) applications in the automotive industry. SMC already has a weight reduction compared to steel. With the use of Scotchlite™ Glass Bubbles in combination with BYK^®-Chemie additives, SMC can be far more improved in terms of the weight reduction, which is the primary benefit for the automotive industry.

The formulations described in this paper were directly compared using automotive industry accepted test methods to quantify formulation differences. The final conclusion proves that the primary benefit of using hollow-glass microspheres in SMC, for the automotive industry, can be achieved by reducing the weight of SMC parts up to 30%.