REDESIGN OF METALIC PARTS WITH THERMOPLASTIC MATERIALS: APPLICATION EXAMPLE

Abstract

ABSTRACT The following essay presents a redesign process of a high responsibility component, made of metal, which is intended to be manufactured with thermoplastic material. First of all, an analysis of the factors to consider in this kind of process is made. These factors are the properties of the thermoplastic materials and their processing characteristics, in this case injection moulding. This analysis is the result of the authors experience over the last twenty years in plastic redesign processes in many industrial sectors. The second part of this document explains the design process carried out and the experimental validation. In this experimental analysis the behaviour of the initial metal piece and the final plastic piece were compared, and also a prototype plastic piece was tested and compared with the metal piece before the final plastic piece fabrication. This prototype was generated to validate one of the functions of this part, and it was schemed without an optimized design, not using the shape advantages of the thermoplastic injection process. Once they are analysed in this essay, conclusions can be obtained with regard to the differences between a simple substitution process of plastic instead of metal and a methodical process in which the thermoplastic material characteristics and the optimization of the shape are considered. Finally, the results of the experimental tests made during the last year with the aim of validating the finite element calculations are presented.