TCA and Contributions Made to Improve SMC Paintability

1
TCA and Contributions Made to Improve SMC
Paintability

• Mike Siwajek
• ThyssenKrupp Budd Company
• Society of Plastics Engineers
• Automotive Composites Conference
• September 9-10, 2003
• Troy, MI

2
Goals and Objectives
3
Defect Root Cause Analysis

• 500 defects from 10 assembly plants catalogued
• Large percentage of defects due to microcracks
  from handling
• Majority of handling defects occurred after
  primer application

4
Root Cause Breakdown
Cracks damage
5
Toughening the Matrix

• Targeting edge defects
• Evaluate all components
• resins
• fillers
• LPAs
• additives
• catalysts / inhibitors
• glass

6
Improved Toughness
TCA
Control
7
Paint Pop Flex Test

• 2? x 18? x 0.1? test strips
• 8.25? diameter cylindrical mandrel
• designed for 125 of ultimate stress
• deformation creates micro-cracks on SMC surface
• Paint with conventional Primer-sealers using
  E-coat bake simulation (380?F for 30 min.)
• count paint pops on surface of SMC

8
PP Flex Test Panels
Control
Tough Class A
9
Verifying TCAs Effectiveness

• Multiple DOEs performed
• Ford Paint on Plastics Team / 6-sigma black belts
• AOC
• Red Spot
• Studied effects of
• SMC type
• Humidity
• E-coat
• Stress after molding (molding plant damage)
• Stress after priming (body shop handling damage)
• Type of primer (standard 2K and UV Thermal)

10
TCA DOE Results
Sample Paint Pop Test Results

• TCA less affected than control
• humidity
• temperature
• handling extremes
• 90 improvement in pop resistance over control

Desired
11
TCA Implementation

• TCA has afforded
• Conversion from double layer of primer to single
  layer of primer without degradation in quality
• Up to 98 reduction in paint defects
• Currently less than 10 defects submitted for
  microscope analysis (since May 2002) - Zero
  Microcracks

12
Ford Sport Trac

• Process DOE completed in May 2002 (defect rate
  reduced to 60)
• Full conversion to TCA in June 2002
• Defect rate has dropped from 60 to below 10

13
Ford T-Bird

• Defect rate includes all parts
• fender converted July 2002
• decklid 07/29/02
• hood 09/2002
• Level defect rate for TCA 1X primed vs standard
  SMC 2X

14
Ford Ranger Hood

• Full conversion to TCA 08/13/02
• Defect rate dropped from 200 to nearly 0
• Pop rate data collection suspended by assembly
  plant

Conversion to TCA
15
Lincoln Navigator Hood

• Converted hood to TCA on 06/17/02
• Level defect rate for TCA 1X primed vs. standard
  SMC 2X

16
Lincoln Navigator Fenders

• Converted fenders to TCA August / September 02
• Level defect rate for TCA 1X primed vs. standard
  SMC 2X

17
Ford Mustang Hood

• Terminator, GT Hoods and Decklid converted to TCA
• Defect rate reduced to 0-20
• Mach 1 launched with TCA

Paint pop Data Collection Suspended by Assembly
Plant
18
Ford Mustang Decklid
Paint pop Data collection suspended by assembly
plant
19
Ford Econoline Hood

• Converted to TCA February 2003

Conversion to TCA
20
What next???

• Remove the Class A SMC Stigma at OEMs
• Tough Class A
• UV Thermal Primer
• New primer-sealer technologies
• SMC Consistency Program
• Best practices (compounding and molding)
• Defect traceability
• Eliminate variability

21
SMC Consistency Improvement Plan

• Target programs for improvement
• Identify Key Performance Criteria (KPCs)
• as defined by customer (molding plant or OEM)
• Target broad cross-section of causes for
  inconsistencies (Control Factors / CFs)
• Form cross-functional teams to focus on this
  effort
• Stepwise regression of defects vs. CFs
• Develop a sound engineering basis for the effort

22
SMC Consistency Roadmap
Data Analysis - identify
Data Gathering
possible CF's
Brainstorm - understand
failure mode
failure
mode
identified ?
yes
no
Conduct experiments to
Implement in production
verify failure mode
Establish CF statistical
Data Gathering to verify
capability
improvement
23
Acknowledgements

• SPE
• Ford GPE
• AOC
• Red Spot
• TK-Budd Team