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The Automotive Center Europe (AMCEU). Photo Credit: Toray Industries

Toray Industries’ (Tokyo, Japan) Resins Technical Center, which will focus on resin development for composites manufacturing, is opening its doors on the premises of the company’s Automotive Center Europe (AMCEU) near Munich, Germany. The new facility will support Toray Resins Europe GmbH (Neu-Isenburg), which markets and sells high-performance resin compounds.

The main mission, says Toray, is to support customer application development by swiftly providing technical data, assisting with part design optimization through CAE simulation and innovative material and defect analyses and evaluations. With this facility Toray says it will address the fast-expanding adoption of digital design for resin products by bolstering long-term durability data and highly accurate mechanical property data that materials require. It will also reportedly increase capabilities for advanced simulation of fiber-reinforced parts, notably to factor in their unique anisotropy.

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The new Resins Technical Center will also offer materials with high tracking performance and heat cycle resistance and provide support analysis on crack prevention. This is to address such issues as cracking from heat cycling during cooling and heating of molded resin products for insulating high-voltage parts with metal inserts, Toray notes, a problem that has increased in line with the emergence of electric vehicles (EVs).

Within the automotive sector, the Technical Center will collaborate with automotive customers alongside the AMCEU, whose molding, analysis and assessment capabilities are said to take full advantage of Toray’s advanced materials. These include fibers, films, resins and carbon fiber composites.
As a result, says Toray, it will be able to reinforce technical solutions catering to European needs by offering construction techniques and structural design features matching its materials and engaging in joint development with European automakers and parts manufacturers.

Overall, Toray believes that, with the acceleration of Europe’s EVs and automated driving technologies, demand for high-performance resins
is expected to keep growing amid an expanding market for electric power control and communication-related components. The demand for high-performance resins that match thermal, electrical and chemical resistance requirements is also expanding in industrial applications, says the company.

As a result, the new Resins Technical Center should enable Toray to swiftly identify local needs and formulate solutions to enhance customer satisfaction in Europe and accelerate the global expansion of its plastics business, particularly in automotive applications.