Reinforced plastics performance, 248 processing

Choosing a reinforced plastic or one from a more-sophisticated polymer family to provide higher performance can be used to cut overall costs by reducing wall thickness and thus reducing material weight and material cost and enhancing the processing. 

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. 

A number of thermotropic polyester-carbonates were prepared through melt-polymerization of substituted hydroquinones and diphenyl tere-phthalate and diphenyl carbonate to have high molecular weight, with reduced viscosity in the range of 2-3. The molecular weights of the polymers can be advanced further by solid state heat-treatment, with the rate of postpolymerization depending on temperature and Concentration of catalyst. Samples of some compositions can be spun into high performance fibers and processed into self-reinforced plastics. The properties of thermotropic polyester-carbonates and polyesters were compared as fibers and plastics. 

DI water is produced using an XYZ rapid, high-performance, twin-bed deionizer. The plant consists of two glass-reinforced plastic pressure vessels that hold the ion exchange resins together with a process pump, pipe work, valves, flowmeters, and controls to enable the plant to produce high-quality deionized water and automatically regenerate the resins. 

Literally many thousands of different plastics (also called polymers, resins, reinforced plastics, elastomers, etc.) are processed. Figure 11 is an example of the basic steps in a plant starting with incoming plastics to manufacturing the finished products and in turn packaging and shipping the products. Each of the plastics have their different melt behaviors, product performances (Figures 12 and 13), and costs. 

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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