Dürr Builds Two Paint Shops in China
BIETIGHEIM-BISSINGEN, Germany – Dürr is the general contractor in implementing two paint shops, each with two top-coat lines, for Changan Ford Automotive in China. This will expand the customer's capacity at its Chongqing and Hangzhou locations.
In the paint shop at the Chongqing location, Changan Ford relies on Ford's energy-efficient 3-wet high solid process. In this wet-in-wet painting process, there is no need to use an oven between painting steps. Ford is also introducing a new 3-wet water-based process at the plant in Hangzhou, responding to new environmental regulations in China.
The use of heat recovery from the oven's exhaust air also saves energy. Changan Ford uses the oven's exhaust heat for heating the air supply of the spray booth. An additional energy-saving measure is Ford’s use of air recirculation in the automatic zones of the spray booths.
Dürr's established RoDip M rotational dip coating system will be used in pretreatment and electro dipping. The rotational movement of the car body in the RoDip tank guarantees uniform cleaning and coating. RoDip technology provides the best possible corrosion protection and a space- and material-saving process, since inclined sections at the entrance and exit of the dip tank are not needed.
In Chongqing, the application of primer, base coat and clear coat for the car body shell takes place with 36 EcoRP L033 painting robots. In addition, four EcoRS16 robots are used for applying the underbody protection. In the Hangzhou plant, 92 painting robots are used for primer, base coat and clear coat application. Eight EcoRS16 robots are used for applying the underbody and stone-chipping protection. All the robots in both factories will be equipped with the high-speed rotating atomizer EcoBell2. Dürr is installing an EcoClean exterior cleaning system for each paint line. This prepares the car bodies for paint application.
The plants, which will manufacturer Ford’s C or D models, will become operational in September 2014 and January 2015. After commissioning in Chongqing, 68 vehicles will be painted per hour, with 60 in Hangzhou. Both paint shops will be run in two shifts.
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