Reinforced plastics advantages

There are no simple rules of thumb in defining the cost of reinforced plastic components. Their successful use has resulted from proper design, utilizing the benefits these materials offer, process selection, tooling cost advantages that fit the production needs, and consideration of life cycle economics. Each existing application illustrates the cost-performance advantage of reinforced plastic over the traditional material that is displaced. 

Our study is outlined in five parts, (a) Two polystyrene plastics were reinforced at different fiber contents alternately with polyester, asbestos, and glass fibers, (b) The mechanical/physical properties of the resultant monofiber-reinforced plastics were determined and compared, (c) Combinations of fibers were then used to fabricate multifiber-rein-forced structures to exploit simultaneously the particular advantages of the different reinforcements, (d) The effect of each fabrication stage on the molecular weight and molecular weight distribution of the matrix plastics was established and (e) a linear mathematical model was formulated to predict the properties of multifiber structures and forecasted values compared with corresponding values experimentally obtained from (c) above. 

There is increasing interest in the application of reinforced plastics for metal replacement in the automotive industry to reduce weight and cost. In some applications, reinforced plastics also oner performance advantages over metal. Although the automotive industry is greatly depressed at the present time, a recent report indicates an 11.6% annual growth rate for reinforced plastics in cars and trucks in the next five years (8). 

The matrix in reinforced plastics may be either a thermosetting or thermoplastic resin. The major thermosetting resins used in conjunction with glass-fiber reinforcement are unsaturated polyester resins and, to a lesser extent, epoxy resins. These resins have the advantage that they can be cured (cross-linked) at room temperature, and no volatiles are liberated during curing. 

A practical, easy approach to designing with plastics and reinforced plastics (RPs) is basically no different than designing with other materials such as steel, aluminum, titanium, copper, wood, and so forth. Each material has its respective advantages that require certain different design approaches. For example, with about 17,000 plastics available worldwide, one has to comprehend factors such as the range of their different properties, structural responses, product-performance characteristics, part shapes, available fabricating processes and their influence on product per-... 

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