This paper will focus on recent experiments having 2 primary objectives: demonstrating appropriate formulating with hollow glass microspheres and developing experimental data that directly compared standard SMC to low-density, hollow glass microsphere filled SMC.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate 2 issues involving the use of hollow glass microspheres in sheet molded compound (SMC): 1) demonstrate the value of using volume fraction over weight fraction formulating to evaluate materials with significantly different densities and 2) directly compare physical property data of low density SMC to standard density commercially available SMC. The primary benefit of using hollow glass microspheres in SMC, for the automotive industry, is reducing the weight of SMC parts.
Hollow glass microspheres have been used commercially as a filler to produce low-density SMC parts for many years. These parts are primarily used in specialty applications on low volume vehicle platforms. In the past, experiments have been conducted using hollow glass microspheres as a low-density filler in SMC with mixed results.
