Lydall Product Innovation Wins 2012 AluFoil Trophy
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MANCHESTER, Conn., March 12, 2012 - The automotive products group of Lydall, Inc. (NYSE:LDL) announced today that its constrained layer damping (CLD) heat shield product won the 2012 AluFoil Trophy in the Technical Innovation category. "The European Aluminum Foil Association judges liked the simple, but effective use of aluminium to simultaneously provide heat shielding and reduce parasitic noise. The designer had to 'think outside the box' to come up with a solution and used aluminium foil to great effect, showing a great technical understanding of the material and its capabilities,"
commented Antoinette Devine, head judge for this year's Alufoil Trophy and global packaging consultant for SABMiller.
The product was a result of a co-development project between Novelis Lüdenscheid, Packaging & Converting and Lydall's Applied Technology Group. The new multi-layer material consists of two thin layers of aluminium, which are laminated together by a viscoelastic polymer. The highly-reflective surfaces of the aluminium layers provide excellent heat shielding at elevated temperatures. The viscoelastic layer serves to reduce the lumped thermal conductivity of the composite, enhancing its thermal performance, and effectively damps and dissipates vibration energy to eliminate parasitic noise. The exceptional vibration damping capacity of Lydall's CLD material has resulted in several German luxury car manufacturers to specify this material for current and future powertrain applications. The approach of adding acoustic functions to traditional thermal products is a growing trend in the global automotive industry.
Receiving this award is a great honor and acknowledges the hard work from the Novelis Innovation Team and shows the various opportunities of aluminium. Michael Knechtel, Innovation Manager of Novelis said, "Aluminium itself is a fantastic material, but by converting it with other components you can create exceptional properties of the final product." The Lydall team is equally proud of this successful new product introduction. "With the potential reduction of the material thickness for heat shields, which leads to weight reduction of vehicles, this development meets the actual sustainability trend of the automotive industry," stated Thilo Kuhl, Applications Engineer of Lydall Gerhardi. Martin Klautke, Senior Vice President Global Automotive of Lydall, added, "The development with Novelis is another milestone for Lydall's Automotive heat shield portfolio, and after years of trials we are pleased that we found the right partner with Novelis to develop a material with exceptional performance to serve the needs of our customers."
Lydall, Inc. is a New York Stock Exchange listed company, headquartered in Manchester, Connecticut. The Company, with operations in the U.S., France, the Netherlands and Germany and offices in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, manufactures specialty engineered products for the thermal/acoustical and filtration/separation markets. For more information, visit www.lydall.com.
