An all-plastic brake pedal with an insert made of Tepex dynalite from LANXESS  is used in the Porsche Panamera NF and the Bentley Continental GT.

Plastic Break Pedal Made with Lanxess’ Tepex Composite Material

An all-plastic brake pedal with an insert made of Tepex dynalite from LANXESS  is used in the Porsche Panamera NF and the Bentley Continental GT.

The break pedal was jointly developed by BOGE Elastmetall GmbH, a global supplier in the field of rubber-metal parts for the automotive industry, headquartered in Damme, Germany, and the LANXESS High Performance Materials business unit.

The all-plastic brake pedal, which has been awarded first place in the “Body Interior” category of the Automotive Award of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE), was also showcased  by LANXESS at the K 2016 Trade Fair, Dusseldorf, October 2017.

“Special recognition was given to the fact that the brake pedal weighs about half as much as a comparable steel structure. It can also be manufactured in large-scale series production using a cost-effective one shot process, and meets the high load requirements thanks to the multi-axial fiber layer construction of the Tepex insert,” said Ulrich Jecmeniza,  expert in lightweight construction with Bond-Laminates GmbH.

Bond-Laminates GmbH,  a LANXESS subsidiary,  develops and manufactures the Tepex brand of continuous-fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites.

High tensile, flexural and torsional strength

Tepex dynalite is a fully consolidated semi-finished product with a thermoplastic matrix that is generally reinforced with layers of continuous glass fiber fabric. A composite construction with a polyamide 6 matrix was selected for the brake pedal. This is reinforced with fiber overlays aligned in the same direction and several woven inner layers with fibers aligned at +45° or -45°. The overlays provide the excellent tensile and flexural strength of the brake pedal, while the inner layers deliver the high torsional strength.

Four versions of the brake pedal have been constructed – one each for left- and right-hand drive cars and drivers who brake with the left or right foot. In each case, the load paths were optimized to account for the different torsional directions.

 Watch a LIVE VIDEO article and interview , LANXESS at K 2016