New Generation Of Fiber Reinforced Plastics To Replace Metals

In recent years,

Hardware is gradually coming out of the market, and the performance of the plastics has been increasing.

A new generation of fiber reinforced plastics, long fiber thermoplastic in fiber-reinforced plastics, has been gaining popularity at home and abroad in recent years. After molding, the fibers can still maintain considerable length and entanglement, so that the finished products have high rigidity and good toughness at the same time, plus the advantages of dimensional stability, light weight and corrosion resistance.

It has been widely used in automobile, aerospace, medical, pportation, sporting goods, household appliances and electronic products.

Plastic parts now account for 16% of vehicle weight, and the first cornerstone (Hongkong) Limited estimates that this percentage will continue to increase to about 25% within five years.

This trend makes the new generation of cars more fuel efficient, less carbon emissions and more comfortable.

Advantages of plastics for metals

Although there are different incentives for individual plastics in different generations of metals, general engineering plastics instead of metals can be summarized as follows:

1. reduce weight - most of the proportion of metal plastics is below 1.7.

Lighter than steel (~7.8) and light weight metals such as aluminum (~2.8).

In general, the effect of carbon fiber reinforced plastics on weight reduction is more obvious.

2. chemical resistance - high chemical resistance makes plastic parts more resistant to rust, rainwater, detergents and other substances than metals.

3. cost savings - not only comparing component costs, but also in terms of cost effectiveness of the overall system, plastic parts may help integrate several components, reduce the number of components and assembly processes, or coloring during injection to reduce the cost of polishing and coloring metal parts.

4. suitable for more complex parts - when the complexity of components increases, the process and cost of plastic parts are lighter than metal parts.

5. increase design freedom -

It is more competent for the production of complex shape design, higher degree of freedom of design, and can enhance the uniqueness of brand or product.

6. reduce scrap rate - reduce multiple processes and reuse when using plastics, which will help reduce scrap rate.

7. sound absorption shock absorption plastic parts are more effective to relieve vibration and reduce noise, and make the use of products more quiet and durable.

Steps for plastics to replace metals

First of all, which metal parts may be replaced by plastics.

Evaluate the functional and process cost of the existing design.

Generally speaking, there is no need to involve the rotation or sliding of components, or to make components that do not involve loading and unloading functions at the time of assembly.

On assembly, the original screw design can also be reduced or replaced by snap fit, ultrasonic or other mounting methods.

In addition, in the design aspect, the FEA (finite element analysis) can be used to pre evaluate the stress status and safety factor of plastic parts when used.

In terms of mold design and machining parameters, the stress distribution in injection molding can be analyzed by using MFA software such as mold flow analysis.

It helps to optimize the finished parts and production processes, so that the project can achieve higher economic benefits.