plastic/rubber
Can all car covers use plastic materials instead of metal?
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At present, the front and rear bumpers of automobiles are made of plastic materials, but the covering parts such as the door and engine cover are still made of metal. Now that the lightweight of automobiles is a major trend, can the covering parts be made of plastic materials, and only the body frame of metal? Is there any process or safety problem?
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  • 1Flooranonymity
  • 2021-08-05 10:51
Yes! But to be clear, the plastics here should be engineering plastics in a broad sense, including PP, PVC, etc., which are common in our lives, as well as some resin-based composite materials. The process is a big bottleneck. But apart from that, there are actually several other reasons:

1. Although high-strength engineering plastics have higher specific modulus and specific strength than traditional metal materials, their material costs are still relatively high, such as carbon fiber materials, so if they are applied in large quantities, it is not economical. So this is one of the reasons why the proportion of composite materials used in aircraft is higher than that in automobiles.
2. Environmental issues. At present, the recyclability of traditional metal materials is far greater than that of engineering plastics. In particular, some thermosetting resin-based materials cannot be recycled at all, so the proportion of their applications on the car body is gradually decreasing, and the research focus has turned to thermoplastic resin-based materials with better recyclability. Of course, the pollution caused by volatiles in the production process of plastics is more than that of metal materials.
3. As far as covering parts are concerned, aesthetics is the first priority. Therefore, the performance of plastics is often unsatisfactory when ensuring surface quality and spraying processes. Just like the late AE86 in the movie "Initial D", it uses a carbon fiber hood. Some people think it is beautiful, but to be honest, I won't appreciate it...
4. It is normal for the outer cover to experience wind and rain, so when considering its material, weather resistance is a point that we must pay special attention to. After all, metal materials have been used in this area for so many years. Naturally, there is nothing to say, but if you switch to plastics, it will be a bit of a headache, such as aging, degradation, and so on.