At its 35th anniversary Innovation Awards Gala, the Automotive Division of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) International presented 11 awards for innovation in plastics for transportation applications and the teams that developed them. The Grand Award won the In-Bed Trunk featured on the 2005 model year Honda Ridgeline pickup truck. This storage system is manufactured form sheet moulding compound, weighing 30 % less than steel. The top award in the body interior category went to GM for the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning film valve featured on the 2005 Pontiac Grand Prix sports sedan. In this application, a highly flexible plastic film valve with apertures is moved within a housing to precisely meter airflow. A combination of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTF), fibreglass and silicone rubber was used to create the system. An all-plastic window-lift system on the 2006 DaimlerChrysler PT Cruise won the category chassis/hardware. The proprietary nylon 66 material was supplied by Michal Day Enterprises. DaimlerChrysler's composite spare-tyre carrier on the Mercedes-Benz A-Class won the environmental category. In this component abaca (banana) fibre replaced glass as reinforcement for the polypropylene matrix. The first moulded-in colour reactor thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO) resin with Class A appearance and low-temperature impact strength won the materials price. The other categories were: performance and customisation (moulded expanded-polypropylene foam structure with a blow-moulded lid), powertrain (plastic spacer in the cylinder block from a high-performance aromatic polyamide material), enabling technologies (world's first bonded hybrid metal/plastic automotive front-end carrier for the VW Polo), safety (polycarbonat/polybutylene terephthalate energy absorbing system in the Suzuki Swift and a textile reinforced glass mat thermoplastic composite beam of the VW golf)


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    Title :

    SPE highlights latest automotive innovations


    Published in:

    Reinforced Plastics ; 50 , 1 ; 26-29


    Publication date :

    2006


    Size :

    4 Seiten, 4 Bilder




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English