Adhesives bond with Premier League football club

The EV’s, sourced by the Etihad Stadium owners from Manchester Lift Safe, are micro-buses used to transport staff and visitors from the mini stadium to the main stadium at the Etihad complex. Each bus can accommodate up to 14 passengers and is slim enough to fit the narrow bridge on site. Using the electric vehicles also fits well with Manchester City’s commitment to the environment.

However, a variety of factors conspired to allow flexing in the transparent roof panels on the vehicles, which in addition to providing passengers with a panoramic view of the complex, also allowed water to leak through the many joints created when the panels had been drilled and riveted in place during manufacture. The seals didn’t hold due to the flexing in the roof material, and the holes were also propagating cracks which amplified the volume of water entering the cabin.

Manchester Lift Safe was informed by the Chinese manufacturer of the buses, LV Tong, that the roof material they used was an ABS-PP mix: a difficult material to bond which is why they had chosen to rivet the roof on in the first place.

Manchester Lift Safe’s Dave Redfearn contacted Newcastle-upon-Tyne based Advanced Adhesives, and engaged in discussion with the company’s Technical Director, Graham Crozier, who observes: “We recommended one of our hybrid structural methacrylates, 8069, for this application. It has been formulated to give outstanding  structural strength, yet retain a high degree of flexibility within the adhesive. This allows it to cope with the bending, twisting, torsional and elongation loads that were present in this roof bonding application. As a result of our success here in the UK, Dave Redfearn kindly recommended us to LV Tong in China, which has now implemented the use of our adhesive on the production line for the bonding of all the roof structures on the vehicles they manufacture.”

Crozier continues “We have our own in-house test equipment for bonding trials, with tensile and peel loadings being the most common tests we carry out. However, with our Climatic Chamber we can also carry out ageing tests on customer materials to provide them with an assurance of the longevity of an adhesive joint over an aged 10+ year period. All of these services are provided free of charge to customers.” Manchester Lift Safe’s Dave Redfern concludes: “We’ve experienced no further problems. I would be happy to give good testimony for Advanced Adhesives to anyone in a manufacturing environment, even when you may not think of adhesives or sealants as your solution. We found ours with Advanced Adhesives.”