Demand factors engineering plastics

One of the key factors which make plastics attractive for engineering applications is the possibility of property enhancement through fibre reinforcement. Composites produced in this way have enabled plastics to become acceptable in, for example, the demanding aerospace and automobile industries. Currently in the USA these industries utilise over 1(X),000 tonnes of reinforced plastics out of a total consumption of over one million tonnes. 

The use of plastics in the car industry has increased dramatically in recent years. This is the result of a number of factors the requirement for lighter and hence more fuel-efficient cars (itself the result of the energy crises of the last decade), the consumer demand for cars to be fitted with extra equipment, the constant up-grading of the decoration and appearance of cars, and the increasing use of engineering-grade plastics in substitution for metal parts. 

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