High Performance Materials for Today’s Vehicles

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High Performance Materials | DuPont Automotive

DuPont high performance materials help make engines more efficient.

 
 
 

Enhanced Performance and DuPont Science

Each successive generation of vehicles arrives with a challenging new set of requirements for high performance materials. At DuPont, we create materials designed to withstand the rigors of ever-increasing heat and pressure conditions. But tough performance characteristics are just the beginning. Weight must be kept to a minimum, even while automotive engineers continually push functionality to the max.

Rethinking Technologies for Optimum Performance and Durability

Every year the auto industry faces the same questions: how do we make it lighter, tougher, more heat and pressure and corrosive fluid resistant, more durable and reliable across the car’s entire lifetime. Providing the auto industry with high performance materials that help engineers push the envelope has long been a key mission for the scientists at DuPont. It never gets easier. The satisfaction comes from the breakthroughs. Five times stronger than steel pound-for-pound, and tough enough to consider 170 degrees seasonably comfortable weather, DuPont Kevlar® fiber can deliver a performance punch well above its weight. From oil and cam cover gaskets to transmission lip seals, engineers turn to DuPont Vamac® ethylene acrylic elastomer when the application demands the standard next-generation heat and oil resistance, plus mechanical properties typically associated with rubber. Prized for its unique combination of high-temperature performance and chemical resistance. 

More DuPont High Performance Materials

Heat, pressure and chemical resistant plastics, elastomers and composites created by DuPont help the industry add lighter weight power-boost technologies to smaller, more efficient engines that reduce CO2 emissions and improve fuel economy without compromising performance. Engine downsizing means higher-temperature turbo-charged hoses — just one reason why today’s engineers predicate designs on DuPont Nomex® fiber.

At DuPont we’re about using science to transform challenges into innovation. Here are some of the initiatives we’re working on with our auto industry collaborators.