Ronal and Kurz refine the technology for manufacturing wheel rim inserts

Last year, the Ronal Group and Leonhard Kurz, a leading developer of thin-film coatings, announced the creation of a new Performance+ hot stamping process that can be used in the production of wheel disk inserts, and at the Fakuma exhibition, dedicated to plastics production and processing, the partners will talk about the development of the joint technology.

While Ronal has developed special aerodynamic inserts that reduce rolling resistance and noise, Kurz has improved the stamping technology, making it more environmentally friendly.

"On the one hand, we were able to abandon the preheating of workpieces, which was previously required for hot stamping, which significantly saves energy and increases the efficiency of the process, and on the other hand, environmentally harmful chromium (VI) is not used, as, for example, in the case of ordinary galvanizing," noted Luitpold Haarlander, head of the plastic decorative coatings department at Kurz. "What is no less important, the technology is ideal for the use of secondary raw materials and reduces the percentage of defects."

Raphael Ballu, a Ronal engineer and one of the project leaders, added that the partners are currently working on making the technology applicable not only to inserts, but also to the aluminum disks themselves, which "opens up possibilities for creating a huge variety of design options and visual effects" and can be of interest to both car manufacturers and the secondary market.

The Fakuma 2024 exhibition will take place from October 15 to 19 in Friedrichshafen, Germany.