Azdel Onboard, now a Hanwha Azdel brand, has made composite panels since 2006 that regularly replace plywood in RV wall construction. When RV manufacturers like Coachmen, Alliance and Nexus started using Azdel composite material in their units, the company hit the ground running.
Hanwha Group, an auto component manufacturer since 1986, bought Azdel Inc. in 2007. Together, the companies form Hanwha Azdel, which has become a key thermoformable and flat-sheet composite material supplier in the RV industry. In addition to serving the automotive industry, Hanwha Azdel has a non-auto division that deals with RVs, as well as heavy trucks, trailers and even a Fort Wayne, Indiana, hunting blinds company.
Though Hanwha Azdel sells composite panels in dimensions up to 12 feet long and 6 feet wide, sheets typically come 4-by-8-feet. The most-popular composite thickness is 2.7 mm, typically used in RV panel replacements, though options vary from 2 to 5.2 mm.
Hanwha Azdel uses its RVX composite in most RV applications and launched EcoLite in 2017 as RVX’s more sustainable cousin. EcoLite is made of 20 percent recycled ground material that is reintroduced during production, making it more flexible than a panel’s standard fiberglass and polypropylene blend. Ecolite looks the same as RVX but is more appropriate in radius wrap applications, like for the curved nose on a motorhome that has a laminated wall.
Instead of having distributors laminate stock vinyl décor on the outside of Hanwha Azdel’s products, the company designed and produced DuraBlend. Hanwha Azdel uses a décor film during the production process, which causes panel layers to bond together and reduce weight on an RV.
“Instead of using a third party and more materials, they take an interior film and introduce it to the core material as it is coming off the line,” said Jeff Squiers, Hanwha Azdel’s marketing representative. “By the time our product is cool and cut, you have a material that is bonded, almost fused, to the core with no adhesive or third-party markup.”
