Japan’s Toray is opening the doors of its Resins Technical Center at its Automotive Center Europe (AMCEU) near Munich. The new facility will support Toray Resins Europe GmbH, which markets and sells high-performance resin compounds.

The main mission 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 will address the fast-expanding adoption of digital design for resin products by bolstering long-term durability data and accurate mechanical property data that materials require. It will increase capabilities for advanced simulation of fiber-reinforced parts, notably to factor in their unique anisotropy, said the company.

The Resins Technical Center will 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. That problem has increased in line with the emergence of electric vehicles.

In the automotive sector, the center will collaborate with automotive customers in concert with AMCEU, whose molding, analysis, and assessment capabilities take full advantage of Toray's advanced materials. These include fibers, films, resins, and carbon-fiber composites. Toray, thus, 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.

Europe’s automotive sector is accelerating a development resource shift to electric vehicles and automated driving technologies amid increasingly strict environmental regulations, including to cut carbon dioxide emissions through better fuel efficiency. Demand for high-performance resins is forecast to keep growing amid an expanding market for electric power control and communication-related components. Demand for high-performance resins that match thermal, electrical, and chemical resistance requirements is also expanding in industrial applications, notably for electrical and electronic equipment and housing parts.

The Resins Technical Center will 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.