A study of high temperature structural foams of select engineering resins

Since the invention of automobiles continuous improvements have been made to improve the speed and fuel efficiency of cars. This can be done by making them lighter. To make cars light various metal parts were replaced by plastic parts. Now continuing with this trend to make the parts still lighter but still retaining their properties plastic foamed parts were used. With the development of higher temperature plastics the trend is to replace metal parts under the hood of the car to reduce its weight further. This gives rise to the concept of high temperature structural foams for under-hood applications. Various engineering plastics were foamed and evaluated for their mechanical properties for the purpose of this thesis. A conventional high temperature blowing agent available commercially was used for this study. The results of the study reflected that engineering plastics on foaming can be used as structural foam parts in under the hood automotive applications. It was observed that foaming caused some decrease in the mechanical properties, but the high temperature capability of engineering plastics was unaffected.