After I had lost internet connection for 4 days, I have been backed to Bangkok already. I am now thinking about what I have done last week.  I wouldn’t believe I was in Sika AG Switzerland-Germany-France, met Chinese guy-Yaobo and visited BMW & PSA.  I feel that it is a fantastic trip forever. I still have a good connection with Yaobo and people in Sika. more »

Now, it is 6 days after the Sika Experience program ended. However, my short note at PSA still waits for me putting it in this blog. On May-11th, Yaobo and me went to PSA Peugeot Citroën Car Plant in Mulhouse, France with Patrick & Pascal. It is much more than I expect that we see the production here very closed.ฺ more »

After a fantastic weekends in Paris, in Monday afternoon we paid a visit to the famous automotive museum in Mulhouse – a city in the very east of France. There we had opportunities to see all kinds of automotives which the history ranging from the beginning of 20th century to nowadays. The brands include Citroen，renault, bugatti,Mercedes-Benz，fiat，etc.In Tuesday morning we arrived at the PSA((Peugeot/Citroen)) production plant in Mulhouse, where we went through the Stamp-Shop, Thrim-Shop and Body Shop manufacturing lines and we could see the Sika baffle and adhisive products being used for reinforcement and windscreen bonding. In the stamping shop, up to 2 tons tool is employed to creat different shapes of car body components. The production capacity of this manufacturing line turns out to be about 300,000 cars per year. Then in the afternoon, we had a visit in Sika Capaflex plant in Düdingen where the general manufacturing process of adhesives and an entirely new and “only one in the world” production line (without request for semiproduct) were shown. The last day in Sika experience is fantastic. We (Mrs. Daniela and us two) had a great time on the Titlis mountain, though the weather was a little bit too foggy to really see something :-) This 10 days trip was an unforgettable experience ever in my life, I learned a lot from all these technical presentations, visits to production plants and very patient explanations from Sika colleagues, I met interesting people and had pleasant conversations with them, I got chances to be in different countries and experience diverse cultures. Big big thank to Daniela who organized everything very well, to Simon and his wife who gave us a great company in Munich, to Pascal and Patrick who conducted a very nice guide for us in PSA plant in Mulhouse, to Nicolae who showed us the extruder operation and plus delicious Italian pizzas, to Dominik who arranged the selection process, and to all other Sika colleagues involved in this activity ! And also a big thank you to Sompol from whom I learned a lot and with whom I had lots of fun !



Last Tuesday, we had the opportrunity to visit one of our customer’s plant. The great about that, is the possibility to see where our Sika’s products are applied. We were able to see the assembly of SikaBaffle parts directly on the BIW (Body In White) steels. Later on, we saw different adhesive applications (Sikaflex). With this experience you somehow ended your trip along the Sika’s supply chain (from the raw material preparation in Widen to the end product at the customer). A big thank you to Patrick, who coordinated and organised that visit.

It seems like a wonderful program for weekend in Paris is not enough…

There are a lot of travelling attractions here. We all travel around Paris by Bike, metro, and on foot. So, we can totally experience the city, people, food, etc. in Parisian style. On Sunday, after visiting Basilique du Sacré-Cœu where we can see the top view of Paris, we go directly to Eiffel Tower by metro. We reach Eiffel tower around 8.30pm and take a lot of photos here, get on the lift to the highest part of Eiffel Tower. It’s very cold windy on the top but an amazing view of Paris here stunned me and even more when it became dark. That’s so fun!!

The weekend we spent in Paris turned out brilliant. On Saturday, we had a biking tour in the afternoon and the guide led us going all around the streets and lanes in Paris. We started from Place Vendôme where gorgeous mansions have been built aiming to celebrate the great victory of war in which Napoleon beated Russian army in 16th century. Then we went to  Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris, Place de la Concorde, and many other interesting places. On Sunday, we went to La Tour Eiffel (the Eiffel Tower) and spent nearly 4 hours on the top of the tower and there we had a really nice overview of the whole Paris city, you could see Triumphal Arch, the Seine river, Notre Dame church, the new commercial areas with dense high modern buildings, everything. Paris is a wonderful city, where history and modern style meet, and this trip will be one of unforgettable experiences in my life.

Sompol Sutharasantic from Thailand and Yaobo Ding from China have been the lucky winners of our second experience trip. They took part in your competition and knew the right answers to our questions.

All of you who had the right answers as well, don’t be disappointed and try your luck in one of the upcoming projects. Our selection process in not only based on the correct answers but also depends on the fact if the CV of the applicant matches the project and if the motivation letter was convincing.

We herby would like to present to you the correct answers of the three questions related to “mobility”.

Question 1: A car manufacturer is designing a new car. With the clever combination of different materials, the weight can be reduced by 150 kg. What mass of CO2 -emissions per km can be avoided with this weight reduction?

1: 9.7 g CO2 /km

2: 8.6 g CO2 /km

3: 7.3 g CO2 /km

Assumptions: The reduction of a car’s weight by 100 kg leads to a reduction in fuel consumption by 0.3 liters per 100 km. It is assumed that the fuel is pure octane. The burning of the fuel can be approximated by the following formula: 2 C8H18 + 25 O2 → 18 H2O + 16 CO2. The density of octane is 700g/liter.

Solution 1: The molar mass of octane is 114g/mol, the molar mass of CO2 is 44g/mol. For each molecule of octane, eight molecules of CO2 are formed. 1 liter of octane contains an amount of substance of: 700 g / 114 g/mol = 6.14 mol This leads to the formation of 49.12 moles of CO2 or 2′161.4 g of CO2. With a weight reduction of 150 kg, 0.45 liters per 100 km fuel can be saved. The reduction of CO2 is 0.45 x 2’161.4 = 972.6 g CO2 per 100 km or 9.7 g CO2 /km.

Question 2: At the heart of the new transalpine rail route is the Gotthard Base Tunnel. With a length of 57 km, the world’s longest tunnel should become operational at the end of 2017. The new Gotthard railway along with other improvements like new rolling stock will bring much shorter journey times. Today the travel time between Zurich and Milan by train is 3 hours and 40 minutes. What reduction in travel time is expected with the new railway on this track?

1: 30 minutes

2: 1 hour

3: 1 hour and 20 minutes

Solution 2: The new Gotthard railway, along with other improvements like new rolling stock will bring much shorter journey times. The 3 hours and 40 minutes needed now to travel from Zurich to Milan through the Gotthard on the Cisalpino tilting train will be cut to 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Question 3: Estimate the savings of water possible with Sika admixtures during the construction of the Gotthard Base Tunnel and compare it to the annual consumption of a person living in Switzerland.

1: 2,000 persons

2: 12,000 persons

3: 20,000 persons

Tips: An average value for water reduction with admixtures at the Gotthard project is 20%. Without admixtures a cubic meter of concrete needs about 210 – 270 liters of water. Until the tunnel becomes operational at the end of 2017, about 2.5 Mio cubic meters of concrete will have been produced for the project. The average water consumption of a person living in Switzerland is 162 liters/day.

Solution 3: The average savings of water are: 240 L x 20% x 2.5 Mio = 120 Mio. liters. In one year a person consumes 59,130 liters of water. The water savings correspond roughly to the annual consumption of 2,000 persons.

We are very much looking forward to welcoming the new participants in Sika Zurich!

Hello Sompol, hello Yoabo, the number of experience mentioned in your blog posts is amazing. You started you contact with Sika Automotive with some very theoretical approaches (CAD, CAE…), followed with touching some chemical backgrounds of our Automotive products (material preparation) and looking to produce some of our prototype parts. Since Thursday, you are now following the supply chain of our Baffle/Reinforcer parts from our production location to the Automotive customer assembly lines. At the end of your trip in the Sika Automotive world you will have a very brought view on what can be done with our products.  I read that you had a good time in Munich. At the moment your are enjoying some time in Paris (in my home country). I hope this will be a good experience too. I will meet you tomorrow in Elsass (one of the regions of France) and we will join a visit at PSA (Peugeot-Citroen). See you tomorrow on your way back to Switzerland. Pascal

This is something Yaobo had published, but also I’d like to share more about this awesome experience. Here, we see the process of designing and making the real products of Sika. Thanks to Nicolae, the Product Developer, for  instructing us to make and also test the SikaBaffle product. We do sawing, cutting, attaching, etc at Sika Lab and Injection molding too.

The Injection Molding part made in the Lab. (See below)

Next day, we learn more about adhesive product – Sikaflex. I cannot imagine first we’ll do it, we made the real adhesive here. Bernhard who advised us is a very smart person at this product. The equipment here is very efficient. We can do it in a specific temperature and pressure along the process. Very very interesting because we made it by our hand, not only watch it! Finally we do some tests for the adhesive we made. In the photo, Yaobo is trying ^.^.

Right now while I am writing this blog is our first sunny morning in Paris, what a good day ! I even start to imagine the biking tour we’ll have in the afternoon… The last two days were great, we visited the laboratory in Zurich which is dealing with body in white technology in car manufacturing process, we had a introduction in Sika power adhesive product and got to make a performance test on them. Then we traveled to Romanshorn having a tour in one of Sika’s partner company which produces 2-K injected Baffle reinforcing parts, and each of us even got a “home made” present – a pen box made in the plant :-)  Before arriving in Munich in Germany we had a long drive about 3 hours, there we spent a wonderful night with the company of Simon and his wife. For the dinner in Hofbrauhaus (HB – one of the “must going” restaurant in Munich) I ordered a traditional Bavarian food – “Crisp roast knuckle of pork” served with grated potato dumpling, that one was fantastic, not only in terms of taste but also in terms of quantity, both of us couldn’t finish our dishes in the end ! And of course at least one glass (1 L !) of bear is the prerequisite for allowing you to have a meal in HB, those who don’t usually drink bear be careful ! :-) Life is cool … On Friday we paid a visit to the BMW plant and BMW museum in Munich. The BMW ( Bavarian Motor Works ) manufacturing line in Munich is the most highly automatical one among all car manufactures in the world, and it’s just incredible to face in front of you hundreds of robotics working together under one roof and the level of precise of them – where to move, what to do, when to start, everything is so well controlled by the preseting program. Thanks to this, the production capacity is 200,000 cars per year, which means more than 500 per day, 1 in 2 minutes ! That is so cool ~~ Then we immersed ourselves in the historical development of BMW in the museum where people could have a look at very old styles of cars and engines. Now comes Paris, more exciting things will follow !