DSM to Expand Reach in Materials Technology for Automotive

Royal DSM (U.S. office in Elgin, Ill.) has signed a “One DSM” technology partnership agreement with Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG)—a 100% subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corp. All DSM businesses active in supplying materials and technology to the automotive sector are part of the agreement including: Engineering Plastics, Dyneema (ultrahigh molecular weight PE fiber), and 3D Printing/additive manufacturing, including Somos for stereolithography (SLA, and other technologies like Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF)), also known as FDM.

One of the specialty areas of TMG—a high-performance development, testing and manufacturing company—is in the manufacture of products by additive manufacturing, both for motorsport use and for external customers.

Under this non-exclusive agreement, DSM will have the opportunity to act as TMG’s preferred material and product provider. TMG will develop and pilot new engineering solutions using DSM’s high-performance materials and products for potential application in the automotive industry. TMG will also test and evaluate DSM products and act as a test user for defined projects.

Golnar Motahari Pour, president of DSM Dyneema, noted that the company’s thermoplastics like Stanyl, ForTii and Akulon already play an important role in automotive—particularly under the hood. Stanyl is the company nylon 46 line; ForTii is its non-halogenated, flame retardant nylon 4T; and Akulon is its nylon XS, said to represent a breakthrough in nylon blown film processing. Pour  added that DSM is also moving fast into thermoset composites. He cited last year’s launch of Dyneema Carbon, which DSM vies as representing a leap in the evolution of carbon.

Meanwhile, Hugo da Silva, v.p. of DSM’s additive manufacturing and 3D printing business added that the company’s materials also have a strong reputation in the 3D printing community. “As we grow our portfolio to support the 3D printing revolution, we are convinced we can do much more…We have already worked with Toyota Motorsport on optimizing our new Somos Taurus for real-world motosport applications, and this agreement will enable us to collaborate even more closely.”

Added Gerard Winstanley, manager future production technologies & processes, fabrication and additive manufacturing at TMG, “We are looking forward to extending our cooperation with DSM as a dedicated technology partner ….TMG’s mission is to push the boundaries of automotive technology for motorsport and road car applications both for Toyota projects and also those of our third-party customers. We believe this partnership will support that.”