Where pickup trucks sell well, a popular OEM and aftermarket option is the hard tonneau cover, which encloses the pickup box, providing dry, lockable storage for contents. Tonneau covers also improve drag coefficient by reducing turbulence in the bed - a highly desirable feature on vehicles notorious for their poor fuel-economy ratings.

There are a number of polymers out there that are towards the top of the material pyramid in terms of strength, stiffness and temperature performance. One lesser known material is self-reinforced polphenylene (SRP), available as PrimoSpire® from Solvay. This plastic is the world’s stiffest, strongest un-reinforced polymer and finds applications in mechanical parts for the aircraft and automotive industries. (7 Member Reaction(s))

Retailers, OEMs, and packaging suppliers are feeling strong pressures from both their supply chain and consumers to reduce all packaging and use packaging materials that are more environmentally sustainable. At the same time, pressures to manage costs, enclose products in ways that increase shelf-life, reduce tampering, confirm items are not counterfeit, and showcase products in an appealing manner continue to be important.

Product designers and their assumptions influence product cost from the very start of any project. The initial stages are where the very basic decisions on the shape and design of the product are taken. The "simple and obvious" decisions such as the type of material, the production method, the wall thickness and the rough outline dimensions effectively define the overall cost of the product. Once you have decided the length, width, height, wall thickness and material type at least 80% of the product cost is already bolted into place! (1 Member Reaction(s))

Elastomeric components are now widely produced from thermoplastic elastomers, TPEs. Selecting the better candidates and grades to work on for optimizing a part application is complicated by the wide range of TPEs now commercially available. New TPE grades are being introduced on a regular basis and understanding the primary issues that drive the material selection process for TPEs will facilitate the process of material selection. (5 Member Reaction(s))

Newly emerging clarifying agents for polypropylene (PP) and blown-film polyethylene (PE) do more than make these polymers more transparent. They also offer other a host of other improvements, including greater strength, fewer taste and odor problems, lower effective usage concentrations, and reduced cycle times in processing. As a result, these multifunctional clarifiers promise to extend the performance range of PP and PE, making them suitable for markets that were previously closed to them.

The rising cost of plastic resins, driven by soaring crude oil prices, is arousing interest in resin formulations containing high levels of fillers, particularly relatively low-cost minerals and glass. Not only do these fillers bring down the cost of fabricated plastic products, they often provide other improvements. These gains include greater output in blow molding or extrusion, higher impact strength and greater structural integrity of molded goods. Recently, plastics additive suppliers and equipment manufacturers have come up with new technologies that enable processors to maximize levels of fillers in their resin formulations, and minimize some of the problems that can result from high filler levels.

HiTUS, a cutting edge plasma thin film deposition is a major evolution from the traditional magnetron technology widely used in industrial and research circles. The essential factor of this leading edge thin film deposition coating technology is a remotely generated high intensity plasma that gives a number of important benefits that are unavailable from magnetron, ion beam, thermal evaporation and chemical vapour deposition coating systems. The HiTUS process delivers very high quality thin film materials with near ideal physical properties, very low stress and excellent adhesion-whether on metal, glass or plastic substrates.

Smart/interactive textiles (SMITs) are a new type of textile technology. Conductive polymers are playing an important role as conductive fibers in the development of these smart textiles for a broad range of applications. In the future, cloth or fabrics will not only protect the wearer and the environment, but also will have intelligent built-in features, such as multifunctional sensors or computing devices. (1 Member Reaction(s))

Fillers for plastics are basically divided into inactive (or extender) fillers and active (or functional) fillers. Fillers are very widely used in the plastics industry, and their growth rates currently exceed those of the resins themselves. They are used in all three major categories of polymers (thermoplastics, thermosets and rubbers). Fillers are essential components of many polymeric products; the fillers market is both complex and valuable (2.3 billion Euros in Europe in 2008).

The annoucement of the competition issued by the Comune di Milano (Municipality of Milan) for the lighting of the town in occasion of next Christmas holidays dates back to a few days ago. The aim is to encourage the realisation of light works that supplement the existing installation projects (light jewels, stylized trees, luminous spheres, chandeliers, etc.), and change the night image of the town as well.

While working with LSR (liquid silicone rubber) has its drawbacks, it is a two component material that requires special equipment and tooling to process, it also has its benefits including heat stability up to 180°C, increasing to 250°C with the right stabilizer package; low temperature flexibility to -50°C; and retention of mechanical properties over the life of the material. All these attributes are great traditional rubber replacement capabilities.

Biodegradable medical implants is one of the fastest growing areas in a global orthopaedics market valued at $10billion and forecast to grow to $15billion in the next five years. In orthopaedics, biomaterials are used in a range of surgical applications, including joint replacements, fracture fixation plates, bone defect fillers, artificial tendons and ligaments and bone cements. Other medical applications include cardiovascular, drug delivery systems, cochlear implants, dental implants and more.

World events, Kyoto Protocol goals and soaring energy costs have ignited renewed interest in solar cell energy, and have unleashed dramatic new technology thrusts. Advances in nanotechnology and inherently conductive polymers (ICPs) are making possible the development by Konarka Technologies Inc. of new photovoltaic (PV) cells that promise to make solar energy inexpensive, unobtrusive and readily available.

Significant enhancements to existing engineering plastics have emerged from R&D activities over the past several years particularly in the area of high flow. This expansion of existing engineering plastics options offers designers and engineers broader design freedom by extending applicability of these materials to products that demand new kinds of material behaviors.

These polymers are most commonly prepared by either (1) phosgenation of bisphenol A, a dihydric phenol, or (2) by direct ester exchange of diaryl carbonate and dihydric phenol. The material is characterized by outstanding heat resistance including high heat deflection temperature, good mechanical properties especially impact resistance, dimensional stability, and transparency. It has the best impact resistance of the various transparent plastics. It also has low moisture absorption and good thermal/oxidative stability.

XCOR Aerospace, a private US-based spaceflight development company has developed a novel composite material for applications in rocket fuel cells as part of XCOR's contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The non-flammable, high-strength, lightweight thermoplastic fluoropolymer composite trademarked 'nonburnite' is suitable for making liquid oxygen (LOX) tanks required for space flight.

Siemens VDO Automotive (Germany), a supplier to the automotive industry, used Kistler's DataFlow data acquisition and monitoring system to compare the cavity pressure profile in eight individual mold cavities during molding of a PBT (polybutylene terephthalate) automotive part. Systematic error analysis of the complex injection molded automotive component before and after process optimization demonstrated that a mold cavity pressure based strategy could be used to improve significantly both the quality of the molded part and the process capability.

Car manufacturers have been integrating parts made from biobased materials into current car and truck models for a variety of reasons, ranging from patriotic and environmental to business considerations. Biobased parts produced in the US that replace petroleum-based components both reduce that country's reliance on foreign oil and simultaneously supports American farmers.

The Madison Group of the Polymer Processing Research Corporation was incorporated by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers to permit technology transfer from academia to industry. Several simulation packages for the polymer processing industry have been developed to help various industries design plastic parts and solve processing problems.

Printed electronics is a term used to encompass printed and potentially printed electronics and electrics. Indeed, with these new technologies, electronics and electrics are merging and they constitute a market of around $1.5 billion today that will grow exponentially to about $300 billion in twenty years.

Thermoplastic elastomers, TPEs, have been continuing to advance with new grades and higher performance features being regularly introduced to the market. All TPE classes have been experiencing these new improved new grades: SBCs (SIS, SEBS), TPOs, TPVs, TPUs, COPEs, and the specialty TPEs. To attain competitive advances a good understanding of the implications of these new products is a must for the TPE and rubber part manufacturers as well as users and specifiers.

The prospect of paying $4/gallon for fuel in the US is finally beginning to impact consumers who, until recently, only mildly altered their consumption habits. Through the first six months of 2008, pickup and SUV sales have declined 27% as consumers raced to find safe harbor from rising pump prices in smaller vehicles equipped with more fuel efficient engines.

Scott Brown of Cambridge Display Technologies, the license holders for polymer OLEDs, gave an idea in the advantages of OLEDs when compared to the very inefficient incandescent lighting and fluorescent lighting, which faces issues such as short lifetimes when switched on and off and mercury content.

The new line will produce the LNP Verton long glass fibre-reinforced thermoplastic composites that are widely used across the burgeoning automotive, telecommunications, and appliance industries in Asia. The company's continued investment in new production facilities such as the LNP Verton composite line is designed to provide customers with a local source of innovative product solutions and technological expertise.

Just as Olympic athletes have been training for the Games for years, designers and manufacturers have spent years figuring out how to use chemistry to make their athletic equipment lighter, stronger, more flexible, and less constricting,to allow athletes to perform to the best of their ability. The article emphasizes on some of these...

Thanks to the innovative engineers and creative architects involved in the structures being showcased for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China, the unusual properties of ETFE are about to get their moment in the international spotlight. And as a result, more traditional transparent materials, like glass or fiberglass, may have some serious competition for projects where natural light considerations are a critical design component.

New Developments in Environmentally Intelligent Bioplastic Additives & Compounds. Scion recognised at an early stage that bioplastics represented a huge opportunity for New Zealand, with its traditional strengths in all aspects of the agriculture, horticulture, and forestry industries' value chains. (1 Member Reaction(s))

Analysts see printed electronics rising exponentially to around $300 billion in twenty years' time, with the demand for conductive inks alone reaching several billion dollars yearly in little more than five years from now and over 1500 organisations across the world are now doing major work in this area, about half of them being academic.

A broad group of technologies known as rapid tooling (RT) have been pursued over the past decade as a viable alternative to traditional machining methods of tool/mold fabrication. RT is distinguished from conventional tooling in tool time, tool cost, tool life and tool tolerance. The article emphasizes on this technology...

Natural fibers are enjoying a comeback in high-tech development. The related research has experienced an explosion of interest, particularly with regard to natural fiber's comparable properties to glass fibers within composites materials. Above all, the automotive industry is interested because cars have been required to be partially decomposable or recyclable since 2006. The main area of increased usage is in interior applications, because the need is the greatest here. A DEFRA report from 2002 projected the growth rates for bio-fibers in automotive components at 54% per year.

Thermoplastic elastomers are remarkably versatile, either used on their own or overmoulded to provide tactile or functional features on components moulded from other polymers. Material properties can vary considerably from one grade to the next, with the difference being down to the chemistry and the presence of filler materials or additives.

When talking about bioplastics, most people immediately think of biobased and/or biodegradable packaging. This is quite understandable, as most examples currently reported in the press and available in the market are of packaging applications. However, other industries are also carefully evaluating bioplastics, or even using them already.

As the number of environmentally conscious consumers continue to grow into a transformative global force, the market demand for biopolymers also continues to increase. Recently, certain additives called chain extenders have been used successfully to improve rheological properties of biopolymers, and it looks like this technology can be used to help these remarkable polymers reach their full potential.

Lecturers at the conference revealed that total transparency is now also possible with printed transistors and many other forms of electrical and electronic devices. For example, a watch is on the way that generates electricity invisibly from a solar cell coating on the viewing glass.

In a joint project with colleagues at the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences, the University of the Arts HfK in Bremen and the Neuruppin-based company TES-Frontdesign GmbH, scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP in Golm have developed a keypad based on organic light-emitting diodes, (OLEDs).

With some mature markets facing the possibility of an economic recession, there is an increased onus on BRIC markets to drive global light vehicle sales growth. However, intricate global trade flows cause individual economies to become dependent on one another for raw materials, energy and markets for finished goods and services. If mature economies fall into recession, the knock-on effects for BRIC countries cannot be overlooked.

A variety of smart polymers are becoming increasingly used to address a diverse range of medical applications. Leading the smart polymer vanguard are shape memory polymers (SMP) molecularly engineered to change shape in response to various stimuli. Typically a medical component or device built from SMP will revert to its original form after being manipulated into a different shape.

Electrospinning (ES) is considered to be one of the most promising processes in the nanotechnology field. This brief review attempts to identify the laboratories that are actively pursuing electrospinning development and the companies that are already reaping the benefit from this process...

While automotive transaction volume and value surged in 2007, increased economic and credit pressures are forcing the landmark "mega-deals" of 2007 to give way to smaller trade deals in 2008. Industry trends including increased restructuring and foreign direct investment are contributing to surprisingly strong interest in automotive deals in 2008.

In the case of biopolymers there is an additional challenge. The colorants, additives and carrier resins used, may need to be in compliance with the European composting norm EN 13432 or the American composting norm ASTM D6400. The article focuses on this aspect...

IDTechEx conferences and reports on printed electronics have a great deal on smart substrates because they hugely leverage printed technology, making awesome new products possible. These are substrates that change shape under electrical bias, that emit ultrasound, sense various things, act as loudspeakers and microphones and so on.

The parable of the immortal bulb is much more than an incredible, but true, world record (it is mentioned in the book of Guinness World Records, indeed) or a freak right for a museum of strange things.

Electrospinning (ES) is considered to be one of the most promising processes in the nanotechnology field. Electrospun nanofibers applications started with and have grown to include environmental solutions, energy storage to healthcare and biotechnology and then to products used for defense & security measures. Today the possibilities of commercializing nanofibers for micro and nanodevices is not in doubt, the only question is when these products will appear on the market...

Speaking at the Semiconductor 2K Conference in Cardiff, Dr Harry Zervos, Industry Analyst from IDTechEx says the move towards printed electronics is a natural progression in the search for products and technologies which are 'greener', more efficient and ultimately more cost effective to produce.

Polymertronics was set up in 2006 to develop technology to produce inkjet-printable, ultra-violet (UV) curable organic light-emitting diode (OLED) fluids. OLEDs that can be printed on standard UV-inkjet equipment have many advantages. An OLED polymer which can be cured with UV light in a few seconds has already been developed by the company.

The new European Union chemicals regulation came into force in June 2007. The regulation is known as REACH, which stands for Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals. The implications of REACH for chemical and down-stream industries and for associated individual companies are significant in terms of cost, managing ongoing customer and supplier relationships, and because of its far-reaching regulatory requirements.

The world's first biofabric made with completely plant-derived fibers, suitable for use in vehicle interiors, has been developed by Mazda Motor Corporation in collaboration with Teijin Limited and Teijin Fibers Limited.

At IDTechEx we go beyond simply announcing advances in printed and thin film electronics and electrics. We try to present the needs for new materials and patterning in this category and the uses that will emerge if practice can follow theory. For example metamaterials have been described that begin to confer invisibility and properties enabling many other new functions and components but practice has more to do to follow theory.

The global healthcare industry is starting to seriously embrace sustainable management and greener purchasing policies. Health professionals and healthcare administrators are rapidly realizing that developing and running a green facility does not have to be costly and that in many cases there are real operational savings to be made.

A driving economic reality of the wood-plastics composites (WPC) business is that the end product costs more than natural wood. Energy costs are a significant part of the equation. WPC compensates for its higher price by offering durability and minimum maintenance requirements, along with ease of installation and attractive appearance.

It may be possible to make things invisible by putting a thin layer of a specially patterned material in the way. Appropriately made, these materials with repeated three dimensional structures less than the wavelength of the radiation used will break the traditional laws of optics and magnetics because they employ quantum effects.

In short, although sustainability is mentioned in almost every new article for the plastics industry and lip service is paid to it by many of the major players, few customers are demanding it. It is almost as if the general public know it is important, as do businesses, but they haven't quite worked out how to incorporate it into their plans yet.

Interesting problems arise when sedan cars are reengineered as roadsters or convertibles. Removing the roof to create an open cockpit typically lowers a vehicle's torsional rigidity by at least half, leading to concurrent losses in handling "crispness" and ride. The challenge - and opportunity - is how to add stiffness back without paying too high a weight or cost penalty.

A newly published study by the Automotive Composites Alliance (ACA), a division of the American Composites Manufacturers Association (ACMA), says that composites make better sense for hybrid-electric vehicles than steel or aluminum. This is because no competitive material/process combination offers more possibilities to reduce weight, lower tooling investment and part costs, and provide opportunities for parts consolidation and reduction or elimination of secondary-finishing operations.

As the range of materials available for use with SLS and their properties are further developed, more applications are emerging, some of which are quite unusual.

Prior to fabricating large or small plastic parts, you must familiarize yourself with the materials you will be working with and their requirements. You will also need to understand the customer's wishes and/or needs and make sure they are realistic. The right assembly equipment is also important in order to be efficient and provide a quality, competitively priced product. The article emphasizes on all this...

Thorn Lighting in Spennymoor, County Durham, UK is leading a project to develop organic light-emitting diode (OLED) materials and efficient device structures for large area lighting applications. The article focuses on this...

Rapid production, now economically feasible in only a few specialised situations, could soon allow routine direct production of functional plastic parts in small quantities, and on a custom basis without any intervening prototyping steps.

It seems so easy to produce a good plastic weld. But, is it really so, or are there some hidden failures that might occur that nobody is able to recognize? When you know what kind of failures can occur, you will have a better understanding of plastic welding and what constitutes a good or a bad plastic joint. The article briefly goes over some important considerations for plastic welding...

Research & Development budgets in the automotive sector are not immune to cost pressures faced by the industry. The challenge for automakers and suppliers is to find innovative ways of optimising R&D expenses in an environment characterised by converging global regulatory trends and the proliferation of diverse products at local levels.

The Portal of Light is honoured to welcome Matthew Tanteri (IESNA, IALD) in its family of Lighting Designers. Matthew is Principal of Tanteri + Associates, an architectural lighting design and consulting practice that provides a complete scope of daylighting, solar shading and electrical lighting integration services to architects, designers, and building owners.

China has about 150 out of the 1000 RFID suppliers in the world. About 100 of them make RFID tags, increasingly by printing the antennas as UHF versions become more popular and the Hana Label process of printing HF antennas reel to reel directly onto the paper feedstock leads to yet more orders at the ten million level, following the student rail pass. Read the new report HF RFID - The Great Leap Forward.

South Korean engineers say that they had developed a new transparent electrode that could reduce the production costs of display screens used in computers and mobile phones. The new technology is expected to cut production costs by 50 per cent, and has the potential to greatly expand the use of displays and touch screen panels because it can be bent, the team led by Lee Geon-woong at the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI) said.

If you think all trade shows are the same, get yourself along to PDM, to be held in Telford, England, 15th -17th April 2008. PDM stands for Plastics Design & Moulding and the accent is as much on design as it is on processing. Wednesday (16th April) is traditionally the 'design' day and one particular exhibit is worthy of close inspection.

A long time before there was welding, bolting or soldering, there was splicing. Splicing is the oldest and one of the simplest ways of joining two pieces together. The concept of splicing involves the connection of pieces by using the surface adhesion between the parts and the adhesives' firmness or cohesiveness. The article emphasizes on this...

It is widely known and published that modern sterilization techniques used in the healthcare industry can have a detrimental effect on thermoplastic polymers. In particular,gamma sterilization, which is the most common ionization method, can cause substantial changes to occur in polymeric materials. Polymer chain scission and cross linking can both occur, altering the physical properties and appearance of materials and ultimately affecting the functionality of a device utilizing these materials. RTP Company’s TPE (Thermoplastic Elastomer) Division has initiated a series of projects to measure the effect different sterilization methods have on RTP Company’s standard TPE products used in medical devices. This paper discusses the effect gamma sterilization has on these various TPE compounds produced by RTP Company for the healthcare industry.

What discourages companies using rapid prototyping techniques? One reason is technical limitations, another is a lack of knowledge and information and a third is uncertainty about the economic benefits. The aticle emphasizes on overcoming raw material limitations in selective laser sintering...

The trillion-plus-dollar per annum semiconductor packaging (encapsulation) market, currently dominated by thermoset epoxy could become significant for injection molders. Epoxies with their low viscosity at relatively low temperatures have a major advantage as the epoxy simply flows over the electronics to be embedded without damaging the microchips during epoxy transfer molding, presently the typical process used for encapsulating semiconductors.

Pressure-sensitive paint will warn when a bridge is about to collapse. VTT Technical Research Centre in Helsinki, Finland, added piezoelectric crystals, which produce a voltage when stressed, to a resin which was painted on the underside of a steel footbridge.

Cambridge University spin-off, Plastic Logic Ltd., a leading developer of plastic electronics is developing and exploiting a portfolio of intellectual property based on inkjet printing of active electronic circuits using advanced plastic materials to form thin film transistors that can be used in many plastic electronic applications.

Selective Laser Sintering is a process that was patented in 1989 by Carl Deckard, a University of Texas graduate student and SLS is a registered trademark by DTM of Austin, Texas, USA. It is one of the most rapidly growing rapid prototyping techniques (RPT).

Plastic welding is, in a lot of industries, mostly unrecognized, but fabricators often need to join plastic parts together in one way or another. Not all plastic elements are suitable for adhesives. So what other methods besides mechanical fasteners are available? The most likely procedure to choose is plastic welding. The article emphasizes on this...

Industrial manufacturing requirements for indelible direct part marking containing machine vision codes are growing exponentially. Direct part marking enables tracking a product from the time of manufacturing until the end of its useful life.Direct part marking containing unique identification information necessitates digital process technology such as inkjet, dot peen, and laser marking.

A little research reveals that ultrasonic plastic welding machines can be purchased in a variety of frequencies, including 15, 20, 27, 30, 35, 40, 50, 60, or 70 KHz. As if this doesn't create enough confusion, even more frequencies most likely are available. If two potential suppliers recommend different frequencies, which one is providing the best information? If an ultrasonic welder of one frequency already is in place, is there a need to buy another of a different frequency? Does it really matter?

There is much to recommend electric vehicles (EVs) today as we struggle with rising fuel prices, warnings that we have entered a "Post-Peak Oil World," and as concern over the environmental and societal impact of vehicle emissions grows. EVs provide clean, quiet operation, mechanical simplicity, fine driving control, excellent conversion efficiency, and the ability to generate torque rapidly and convert kinetic motion back into electricity using regenerative braking.

Once again transistor radios made from carbon nanotubes make the news. Nanotube devices and circuits are now possible, thanks to a novel growth technique developed by researchers at the University of Illinois, Lehigh and Purdue universities in the US.

Organic based solution processable devices may revolutionise the lighting and photovoltaic industries of the future. The lifetime of these devices can be improved by incorporating carbon nanotubes (tubes made of carbon atoms, 1000s of times thinner than the width of a human hair) in the polymer to form a composite.