Structure

The world's second all-plastic vehicle, the Baja, has a plastic composite chassis. The vehicle is ideal for off-road tropical environments where its composite body and chassis resist sand and seawater. Its combined thermoplastic and thermoset skin and frame take advantage of plastic's strength to manage energy, enabling it to pass both the United States' and the more stringent European computerized crash tests. The chassis' light weight is a tremendous advantage to manufacturers, since weight savings makes parts easier to transport. It also provides consumers better fuel economy, and with the fuel savings that light weight brings, helps preserve resources and protect the environment for us and our children.

Since plastic and plastic composites have only recently been considered for use in frames, there is not yet a track record as to what types may be best suited to these applications. Experiments with plastic in frames may lead to future innovations enabling plastic to replace metal on a broader scale.

Crash-absorbing foam is a well-tested application. Door panels are filled with rigid, energy-absorbing polystyrene or urethane-based foam that acts as side impact absorbers, and help maintain a car's structural rigidity. These lightweight foams provide excellent energy management capability during a crash.

A drive shaft helps transmit power from the engine of a car to an axle. Thanks to plastic's excellent energy-management characteristics, a single-piece plastic-based drive shaft can help reduce levels of NVH. Since a drive shaft runs the length of the underbody of a car, it also behaves as a structural beam, helping to absorb energy in case of a collision.

Images provided by the Automotive Division of the Society of Plastics Engineers International (SPE), a not-for-profit engineering society.