The lightweight potential of natural fiber based composites in automotive interior parts

摘要

Natural fiber embedded in PP can be used with technical, environmental and economical advantage to produce light weight trim components for automotive industry. Moreover, the weight of the parts might be additionally reduced by implementing an EPP core into the composite, thereby the same stiffens might be achieved whereas the weight of the trim component might be reduced by 40 percent. Flax-PP-EPP parts show excellent mechanical properties that justifies their use as interior part material. In terms of recycling issues, even those sandwich structures consists of only two components (natural fiber and PP) which gives access to an easy way for material recycling. Currently, the Molan Group is able to produce waste free automotive trim car components, as all the natural fiber-PP residues can be recycled into part production or can be re-used as a granulate for the production of buckets that were fabricated by injection molding.