Cavity Filling for
Exclusive Cars
Cavity filling machines and plants are regularly supplied by Cannon USA to the leading car manufacturers in North America .
Cavity filling machines can be supplied by Cannon in a variety of configurations , for the most sophisticated robotized injection and for the simplest manual application . The AP10 is one of the available models .
PERHAPS THE EXCLUSIVE OWNERS OF A ROLLS ROYCE DO NOT KNOW THAT THE QUIET COMFORT OF THE VEHICLES THEY RIDE IS PARTIALLY DUE TO SMALL BUNS OF SOFT FOAM HIDDEN IN THE BODY OF THE CAR . AND PERHAPS THEY DON ' T KNOW EITHER THAT THOSE BUNS COME OUT FROM A CANNON HIGH PRESSURE FOAMING MACHINE MODEL AP10 , THAT CANNON SOLD TO ROLLS ROYCE IN 2010 . SINCE THEN CANNON HAS RISEN AS ONE OF THE MARKET LEADERS IN THIS TECHNOLOGY , CALLED “ CAVITY FILLING ”: DIRECT INJECTION OF FAST REACTING POLYURETHANE FOAM INTO HOLLOW AND TINY SPACES OF THE CAR BODY .
Cavity illing – and we ' re not talking of dentist ' s practice – was once reserved to two different kind of vehicles : high level cars produced in relatively high volumes ( think to Audi ' s A6 or Q5 , both acoustically insulated by Cannon machines in China , Mexico and Brazil ) or very high level cars produced in very small volumes ( think to Rolls Royce ). A quite small and fragmented market , characterized by a sort of continental divide between the two shores of the Atlantic Ocean . In North America cavity illing foams have mainly closed cells for waterproofness and they are dispensed in the lower part of the car body , to dampen noise coming from the road . In Europe OEMs ( mostly from Germany ) prefer to upholster the pillars of their car bodies with very soft open cells foam , mean to dampen airborne noise . All this explains the scattered diffusion of cavity illing technology among Automotive OEMs . Not that they lack alternative technologies : soft baf les are widely used as acoustic insulators . These ready-made buns are placed in the car body and then they expand when the car body is heated in the oven at the paint shop , illing the cavity .
New Energy Saving Processes Demand New Cavity Filling Formulations However the future of cavity illing seems today brighter than ever . Saving energy is a compelling need for everybody , including the producers of the most expensive cars ; to reduce energy costs in the paint shop a new breed of paints , requiring lower baking temperatures in the ovens , is coming up . But at such lower temperatures conventional baf les will not expand . That ' s where Polyurethane cavity illing formulations step in successfully . And – guess what ? – Cannon is ready . Cannon is currently the only worldwide supplier of machines for any kind of cavity illing Polyurethane formulations .
Open cells , closed cells , ratio 24:1 or 16:1 ( patented by Dow ), ratio 2:1 or even 1:1 – Cannon has the right machine for it . Manual application ? Checked . Robotic application with cameras guiding the robot to the injection holes ? Checked . Even budget is not anymore a problem . An automatic or manual cavity illing plant built for high productivity according to the strict OEM ' s speci ications can easily require a budget between 500,000 to over 1 million Euro . But Cannon has egregious machines for cavity illing in one tenth of that budget , making cavity illing worth and affordable for low volumes production or for lower end cars .
7