Current Development and Future Prospects of DIN6701 (EN17460) Adhesive System Certification Training

As of January 26, 2024, over 320 companies in China have successfully obtained certification for DIN6701 and its upgraded standard EN17460. Compared to over 270 companies before the pandemic, the rail transit industry has steadily developed over the past three years, with nearly 20 companies growing annually. Through this number, we can feel the urgent demand for adhesive technology in China's rail transit industry.

Looking back, at the end of 2019, Germany led the world with nearly 390 certificates, while our country still has a gap of over a hundred compared to it. However, now this number has shrunk to 60, which undoubtedly witnesses the rapid development and widespread application of adhesive technology in China's rail transit industry. The newly added enterprises or products are mainly concentrated in the A2 or A3 categories, which have a more urgent demand for bonding technology compared to the A1 level.

In the identification of special processes, adhesive technology not only requires clear and urgent personnel requirements, but also puts forward higher requirements for the management of the entire process than conventional processes. In recent years' adhesive expert forums, various adhesive companies have reached a consensus that the quality of adhesive work directly depends on the skills and sense of responsibility of the operators. However, during the review, the author found that some companies have not fully utilized the advantages of EAB (European Adhesive Operators/Operators) personnel after training grassroots operators, which has to some extent affected the quality of bonding.

Currently, the most common problem is that companies arbitrarily transfer positions, resulting in operators being unfamiliar with the process, which poses great risks to each bonding process. Even for A2 pieces that are not highly valued, there have been cases of batch bonding quality abnormalities, which shows that bonding work cannot be taken lightly.

After experiencing these typical failure cases, more and more companies are beginning to pay attention to the management of frontline adhesive personnel. They not only equipped auxiliary personnel to record from the side during the bonding process, but also increased the training intensity and frequency. In the past, people highly praised German manufacturing. Nowadays, more and more quality and technical personnel realize that it is better to do it themselves than envy others. After mastering the basic principles of bonding, with the continuous progress of adhesive technology in China, everyone has begun to pave the way for the widespread application of bonding technology in various aspects such as design, process, and quality control.

With the gradual recognition of the advantages of bonding, more and more companies are becoming confident and daring to try this technology. With the large-scale production of FRP materials and the application of "bonding instead of welding", the application of bonding in the rail transportation industry is becoming increasingly diversified, not only reflected in the diversification of joint forms, but also in the enrichment of materials and products. In the future, as more companies discover the combination and utilization of connection technology in the product design process, as well as new requirements for load/function on products, adhesive technology will receive more attention in a more convenient and proficient application form.