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Vacuum Casting Automotive Exterior Manufacturing Using ABS Polycarbonate for Lightweight Bumpers Trim Pieces
Product Description:
Vacuum casting is increasingly being used in the automotive industry for producing exterior parts such as bumpers, trim pieces, and other lightweight components. This process offers numerous benefits, including the ability to produce high-quality, durable prototypes and low-volume production runs with excellent surface finishes and minimal defects. ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) and Polycarbonate (PC) are commonly used in vacuum casting for automotive applications due to their impressive mechanical properties and versatility. ABS is known for its toughness, impact resistance, and ease of processing, making it ideal for parts like bumpers and trim elements that need to withstand impact without cracking. Polycarbonate, on the other hand, is valued for its high transparency, optical clarity, and high heat resistance, making it ideal for automotive lighting components and other parts exposed to high temperatures.
The vacuum casting process involves pouring liquid resin into a mold, then applying a vacuum to remove air bubbles and ensure the resin fills every cavity in the mold. This results in parts with superior detail and surface finish, which is crucial in automotive applications where appearance and functionality are key. The ability to cast complex shapes with precise dimensions also enables manufacturers to produce parts with intricate features that would otherwise be difficult or expensive to achieve using other manufacturing methods. Moreover, vacuum casting allows for fast turnaround times, making it an ideal method for producing prototype parts for testing and validation.
In addition to producing exterior parts, vacuum casting can be used to create functional prototypes for other automotive applications, such as engine components, dashboard units, and interior elements. The combination of ABS and Polycarbonate in vacuum casting ensures that the resulting components are strong, durable, and lightweight, which is especially important in automotive design, where reducing weight is a key factor in improving fuel efficiency and performance.
The process also allows for greater design flexibility, enabling manufacturers to iterate quickly on designs and bring products to market faster. Whether for prototype production or limited-series manufacturing, vacuum casting offers an efficient and cost-effective solution for producing high-quality plastic parts for the automotive industry.
Applications of vacuum casting
Vacuum casting is one of the most cost-effective ways to produce high quality, low volume plastic parts which can be similar to injection moulding parts
The parts are especially suitable for form, fit and function tests during the embodiment design stages, where they can be used for marketing, field user testing and product design verification purposes
There are many Urethane casting resins commercially available that can be used to create parts to satisfy a wide range of design requirements such as temperature requirements, different surface textures, hardness, etc.
Materials are also available to create parts that are fully opaque, translucent or completely transparent
Sometimes high-quality wax masters can be made using vacuum casting for investment casting to increase the finer details of intricate features
| Time frame | Within 24 hr – 5 working days for up to 30-50 parts |
| Material choice | Wide variety of materials available |
| Accuracy | ±0.3% (with a lower limit of ± 0.3 mm on dimensions smaller than 100 mm) |
| Minimum wall thickness | To ensure that the mould is filled properly, a wall thickness of at least 0.75 mm is necessary. But best results are achieved with a recommended wall thickness of 1.5 mm |
| Maximum part dimensions | The size of the mould is limited by the dimensions of the vacuum chamber |
| Typical quantities | Up to 50 parts per mould |
| Surface structure | Gloss to Matt surface finish can be obtained |
Polyurethane (PU), the full name of polyurethane, is a polymer material formed by polyol and polyisocyanate through polycondensation reaction with excellent mechanical properties
[1], which is extremely plastic. Its synthesis can be traced back to 1937, when Professor Byaer first synthesised straight-chain linear polyurethane resins using 1,6-hexanediisocyanate and 1,4-butanediol as raw materials
[2]. Several major classifications of polyurethanes include polyether-type, polyester-type, polyimide-type, and polyurea-type, etc. They can be made into materials such as polyurethane plastics (mainly foams), polyurethane fibres (known as spandex in China), polyurethane rubbers and elastomers
[3].After nearly eighty years of technological development, this material has a wide range of applications involving products such as coatings, adhesives, fabric finishes, leather modifiers, polyurethane soft/rigid foam, elastomers, etc., which are used in the fields of textiles, construction, aviation, shipping, transportation, medicine, electronics, and so on.
Flexible polyurethane mainly has a linear structure with thermoplasticity, which has better stability, chemical resistance, resilience and mechanical properties than PVC foams, with less compression variability. Heat insulation, sound insulation, shock resistance, anti-virus performance is good. Therefore, it is used as packaging, sound insulation and filtration materials. Rigid polyurethane plastic is lightweight, sound insulation, superior thermal insulation performance, chemical resistance, good electrical properties, easy processing, low water absorption. It is mainly used in construction, automotive, aviation industry, thermal insulation structure materials. Polyurethane elastomer performance between plastic and rubber, oil resistance, abrasion resistance, low temperature resistance, aging resistance, high hardness, elasticity. It is mainly used in the shoe industry and the medical industry. Polyurethane can also make adhesives, coatings, synthetic leather, etc.
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