Information On The Use Of Structural Adhesives In Vehicle Construction: General

Structural bonding in the body shell means that the adhesive assumes functions of stiffness, crash strength and endurance strength, whereby the characteristics of the body shell are positively influenced in a significant way. In a conventional steel body shell, use is made of a high-strength, heat-hardening single-component epoxy resin adhesive that fully hardens in the cathodic immersion paint drying oven. In the case of a repair, this adhesive is replaced by a cold-hardening two-component epoxy resin adhesive, since the hardening temperatures necessary for the single-component epoxy resin adhesive are not conceivable on an assembled vehicle. For both series production of bodies-in-white and repair, structural bonded joints are regularly used in combined jointing processes.