Wheels and Tires
Wheels and tires are one area of a car where using lightweight materials makes a big difference to the cars overall agility and driving performance. Angular acceleration of rotating masses requires lots of energy, and a spinning wheel offers resistance against changing the plane of rotation, i.e. the direction of its torque vector. Hence, reducing the mass of a wheel not only reduces energy consumption of the vehicle, but also improves its steering response significantly. Road noise is generated by contact between tires and pavements, and the cavity between the tire and the wheel rim acts like a resonating body of a drum, while the wheel transfers the structure borne noise from the tire to the automotive body. Henkels portfolio of LOCTITE® MAX matrix resins for fiber reinforced composites offers tailor made products for carbon wheels that combine outstandingly high temperature resistance with extraordinary toughness. They allow to reduce the mass of a wheel by about 50% as compared to aluminum wheels, and at the same time, they transfer significantly less structure borne noise, thus reducing the road noise that is transmitted to the passenger compartment.
Henkel’s tire bonding adhesives can be used to bond a layer of sound-absorbing foam to the inner surface of the tire tread to absorb tire cavity noise. Leading tire manufacturers rely on LOCTITE® Fix in Tire adhesives for their innovative silent tires. The adhesive can also bond sensors to tires.
The BONDERITE® light metal pretraetment solutions for aluminum wheels have been developed to deliver excellent corrosion protection at minimum processing cost.
With a wide range of durable, fatigue resistant, and high-quality materials and noise reduction technology, Henkel offers reliable solutions for wheels and tires.