Polymeric materials for impact and energy dissipation

Automotive plastic components are often required to withstand impact loadings and dissipate energy in automotive collisions, protecting occupants and pedestrians. The design of plastic components against impact loading is not a trivial engineering task, but still a challenging activity. The optimisation of the impact behaviour of plastic products requires a global approach involving material properties, processing methods and geometrical design solutions. This communication presents solutions to develop plastic components requiring high impact performance, based on a highly interrelated triad: polymeric material systems with improved impact toughness, processing methods for plastic products with enhanced toughening performance and design solutions for plastic components with superior impact behaviour.