PU Composite Panel for Spare Tire Cover, Trunk Cover Panels

The spare tire cover is also called trunk cover or luggage board. Laying in the trunk, it has 3 important tasks:

It is the isolation between spare tires and the trunk. So the size of this panel has to be large enough.
It is a part of the trunk storage. So the cover panel should be strong enough.
It is listed in the NVH system. The trunk cover panel is supposed to reduce the noise from the chassis and rear wheels.

Traditionally, the materials of the spare tire cover are PHC (paper honeycomb) panels, PU composite panels, PP honeycomb panels, SMC panels, hard fiber panels, etc.. Some of them are weeded out due to heavyweight, pollution or poor properties of heat resistance (e.g. PP) and sound insulation. Now the dominant materials left in the trunk cover market are PHC and PU composite panel.

PHC Panel

It is a lamination of corrugated paper (core) and plain paper (surface). This structure is convenient and environmental friendly. Glass fiber reinforced PHC panel is a sandwich structure with PHC as the core and a glass fiber & PU reinforced layer as the skin. It is more lightweight and stronger.

The technology is easy to process and highly automatic. It is the most advanced technology of spare tire cover panels.

PU Composite Panel

The structure of the PU composite panel is similar to the roof panel’, and so is its process. There is an additional side material layer on one side of the panel, and the other side a non-woven fabric layer.

Besides strong and lightweight, PU composite trunk cover panel is also good and heat and sound insulation.

Other parts of vehicles are also available for PHC and PU panels. For example, PHC can be used in the floor panel, windows, clothes shelves, etc., and PU composites for roof panels and carpets.