Walki’s underbody shields are fit for a sustainable automotive future: lightweight and no glass fibre

If you are looking in to making your vehicles more sustainable, take a look underneath the car. With the right underbody shields, the car is protected from roadside damage while enhanced aerodynamics ensures lower fuel consumption and reduced emissions. Walki’s solutions are also entirely free of glass fibre.

The automotive industry has been on the hunt for glass fibre free underbody shields, as glass fibre comes with health hazards in the production and is ill fitted for recycling as it’s not an organic material. Walki’s R&D team has been hard at work to come up with a solution that is recyclable, lightweight and free of glass fibre.

“The underbody shield fit for the future should not only be free of glass fibre, recyclable and light, it also needs to be thermoformable and of course meet the requirements of protecting the car”, says Steven Verheul, Automotive and Steel, Category Manager at Walki.

Promising test results

Walki can now present two solutions for underbody shields: a light version of 160g and a slightly more robust one of 215 g. Walki’s solution is a combination of polyester-based materials that are chemically bound during an extrusion coating process. Testing has showed that simply compressing the different layers is not enough to keep the scrim in the matrix and withstand a severe road test.

Walki’s solutions have been tested using the Ford bolt pull through test and the results are very promising: the strength of the material was significantly increased with the scrim being fully incorporated in the matrix.

“The physical performance is comparable to underbody shields reinforced by glass fibre”, says Verheul.

Thermoformable and flame-retardant

Walki’s polymer-based materials are thermoformable, making them more flexible both for customers’ production lines but also for getting the right shape for the end uses. These textile-based and correspondingly lightweight underbody shields skins can further be tuned to also absorb noise and therefore simultaneously reduce the interior and exterior noise, i.e. the pass-by noise, of cars. Walki’s extensive experience from flame-retardant compositions is applied in the underbody shields.

“The trend is to move away from glass fibre and go towards sustainable materials that are more environmental-friendly and recyclable”, says Verheul.

Steven Verheul
Automotive and Steel, Category Manager
Tel. +31-650478781
email: steven.verheul@walki.com
More info: www.walki.com