Advanced Thermoforming, 2nd Edition

Chapter 7Automotive Body and Commercial Vehicle Applications

7.1 APPLICATIONS FOR CAR BODIES—ABS/PMMA

For car body applications, for example, for caravans or recreation vehicles, special ABS/PMMA multilayer sheets have been developed. Unlike glass fiber reinforced plastics, these semifinished products can be formed in a more economical and environmentally friendly way.

Also for the recreation vehicle and caravan industry the developers must work out cost‐effective manufacturing processes and methods. Certain manufacturing processes that are not up to date may, in many cases, be too costly. In particular, the material technologies used until recently have been too expensive.

The elimination of complex and costly paint work, weight reduction by means of a lightweight mode of construction, and the reduction of the CO₂ emission values are already the well‐defined aims of manufacturers of caravans or recreation vehicles.

A cost‐saving consideration is to use ABS/PMMA multilayer sheets. ABS/ PMMA multilayer sheets, which are the current trend and for which there are rising demand in the automobile industry this market, have been developed by Senoplast Klepsch & Co. GmbH, a company based in Austria.

Until the 1990s in the caravan sector mainly GRP (glass fiber reinforced plastics) composites were used for the front and rear panels. The production of these GRP parts involved huge costs because their production could not be fully automated. To process GRP composites, their specified ...