Plastic car chassis on the way?

18 March 2004: Special plastic car chassis that would be strong, light and easy to recycle could soon be rolling off the production line.

The composite thermo plastics could be the answer to car makers' problems as they face tougher legislation to make cars 'greener.'

Researchers at a Midlands University in Britain have been working on new ways of producing ultra-strong plastics for more than a year under a project called APPLE - the Advanced Polymeric Composite Panels with Low Environmental Impact.

Normally making complex composite plastic components is a time-consuming process which means that the finished products are too expensive to mass-produce.

But the APPLE research at Warwick University's Advanced Technology Centre has already solved many of the practical problems and scientists and engineers are now looking at ways of making a range of structures out of plastics which can be easily recycled at the end of their working lives.

©2004 irishcar.com