RECENT PLASTICS IN AUTOMOTIVE MARKETS

AUTOMOTIVE MATERIALS

RECENT PLASTICS IN AUTOMOTIVE MARKETS

Introduction

          The automotive industry is gradually developed with using a lot of diverse materials. Especially, the plastic was ready to play a major role in current automotive industry. The real plastics revolution in automotive industry started in 1950 when thermoplastics were made, opening with ABS and going on to polyamide and polycarbonate.The ongoing development of advanced, high-quality polymers has greatly increased their usage. Originally plastics were specified because they provided great mechanical properties mixed with excellent display, including the possibility of self-coloring. The application of plastic components in the automotive industry has been increasing over the last decades. Recently, the plastics are used mainly to make vehicles more energy efficient by light weight, together with providing durability, corrosion resistance, toughness, design flexibility, resiliency and high performance at low cost.

Plastics in automobiles

The average vehicle uses about 150 kg of plastics and plastic composites versus 1163 kg of iron, steel and aluminum – currently it is moving around 15-20 % of total weight of the vehicle.

Increasing usage of plastics in automobiles.

Combination of aluminum (light sky blue color), magnesium (red color), plastics (dark blue color) and steel (green color)

         During the huge growth of plastics in automobiles, it has changed  the advantages of using plastics. Mounting costs are being met by the ability of plastics to be molded into components of complex geometries, often replacing several parts in other materials, and providing integral fitments that all add up to easier assembly. Many types of plastics are used in more than thousand different parts of all shapes and sizes. A quick look inside any model of the vehicle shows that plastics are now used in exterior and interior components such as bumpers, doors, safety, frame and windows, headlight and side mirror housing, trunk lids, hoods, grilles and wheel covers.

         Although up to 13 different plastics were used in a vehicle model just three types of plastics make up some 66 % of the total plastics used in a vehicle: polypropylene (32%), polyurethane (17%) and PVC (16%).

Here is the link what is the polypropylene, polyurethane and PVC.
http://www.b-plastic.com/Plastic/en/container/54/162/,91,160,162/3