Adhesives in rolling stock manufacturing

With a history of some 4,000 years, glueing is the oldest means of bonding objects together. Wall-paintings in Thebes reveal that as early as 2,000 BC vegetable and animal glues were being produced in Egypt. However, with the widespread use of welding, industrial glueing became much less important; only in recent decades has it undergone something of a renaissance. The advances in polyurethane chemistry have undoubtedly played a major role in this revival in the vehicle manufacturing industry. Given the dominance of these products in heavy-duty applications, other adhesives have tended to drop out of public view.