Flexible bonding in mass transit and commercial vehicle bodies

Industrial sealant and bonding manufacturer Forgeway has created the Formoa 017FE, a flexible adhesive for bonding mass transit and commercial vehicle bodies.

Formoa 017FE is claimed to have 300% - 500% elongation, eliminating concerns over twisting, bumping and rolling as the flexible adhesive absorbs movement within its internal structure rather than transferring all force to the bond interface. The adhesive also has a lap shear strength of 2.5N/mm2. Assuming a minimum bond width of 25mm, the theoretical force needed to remove the body in shear would be approximately 56,500kg.

It cures from the outside to the inside and a full cure of a 25mm wide bond will typically take seven days, but with Formoa 017FE one third of the end strength is reached in the first 24 hours.

Forgeway's Formoa range has superior durability and doesn’t embrittle with age. The company has been successfully bonding one-piece composite and plywood floors in buses for 20 years, and many of their buses and truck bodies have been put through full durability life-cycle testing at Milbrook and Altoona, USA. All of its lap shear testing is done on-site at specific speeds that represent what a vehicle sees in real life when tested with strain gauges on test vehicles