SHANGHAI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
The Shanghai Tongji University’s student car racing team, TJU, will
participate in Formula SAE 2017, an auto design competition organized by
the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International. The first stop
of the tour takes place in Germany this month. The race car, dubbed
TR17, was designed and developed independently by students from the
College of Automotive Studies of Tongji University. TR17 is painted with
Axalta’s Spies-Hecker® waterborne coating, courtesy of Axalta
Coating Systems (NYSE: AXTA), a leading global supplier of liquid and
powder coatings. The coating was applied at Axalta’s Asia-Pacific
Technology Center.
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TR17, the race car of Shanghai Tongji University's student car racing team was painted with Axalta's coatings. (Photo: Axalta)
Support from Axalta has enabled the TJU racing team to witness the birth
of an innovative, camouflage car body design with red, black, and white
patterns. The coating has decreased the car’s body weight when compared
to the team’s previous race car, providing an advantage over the
competition.
Lightweight, yet stable race cars dominate today’s autosports. With
carbon fiber, the TR17 is able to reduce its overall weight, but the
car-body surface is very porous. Therefore, the coating must accomplish
smooth coverage and quality appearance while keeping its total weight to
the lightest level when complete. Axalta’s technicians applied
Spies-Hecker waterborne coating to the TR17 and the weight of the entire
car was increased by only 700 grams, although the thickness of the
coating was around 50 microns, slightly thinner than an 80-micron thick
A4 paper.
“The TR17 is specially designed to bear patterns of China’s national
flag at the sides of its tail wings. Having China’s national flag
presented on a car demands high standards of the painting technology,
equipment and environment used. Axalta Spies-Hecker is designed to
provide performance efficiency and its waterborne property offers
sustainability to the environment. Axalta’s wet-on-wet coating
technology requires only 1.5 sprays per step, completing the coating
process of TR17 with the best coating effects in only three days,” said
Zhang Renjun, Technology and Training Manager at Axalta China Refinish,
who is responsible for TJU’s race car coating project.
Sponsorship of the TJU race team aligns with Axalta’s global STEM
(Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education program as
well as the company’s CSR commitment in China which incorporates
education on sustainability. The cooperation between Axalta and Tongji
University’s racing team is part of demonstrating the value of
technologies, engineering and innovation behind Axalta products as a way
to inspire students to develop a passion for, or pursue a career in
coating innovation and technology.
The TJU racing team won the Formula SAE China 2016 championship and the
team looks forward to another exhilarating performance at Formula
Student 2017.
About Axalta Coating Systems
Axalta is a leading global company focused solely on coatings and
providing customers with innovative, colorful, beautiful and sustainable
solutions. From light OEM vehicles, commercial vehicles and refinish
applications to electric motors, buildings and pipelines, our coatings
are designed to prevent corrosion, increase productivity and enable the
materials we coat to last longer. With more than 150 years of experience
in the coatings industry, the 13,600 people of Axalta continue to find
ways to better serve our more than 100,000 customers in 130 countries
every day with the finest coatings, application systems and technology.
For more information visit axaltacoatingsystems.com
and follow us @Axalta on Twitter and on LinkedIn.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170815006136/en/
Source: Axalta Coating Systems