TAGS: Automotive Cost Efficiency
BASF offers a wide range of high-performance plastics to support electromobility and contributes to several sensitive electronic sensor technologies for improving the functionality of the automated vehicle with greater cost efficiency.
BASF’s Flame-Retardant Plastics
Flame-retardant plastics are indispensable in enabling savings to be made in terms of the weight and installation space required for high-voltage components in automotive industry. Special
polyamide (PA) and
polybutylene terephthalate (PBT) grades from BASF can be used as halogen-free, flame-retardant materials to give high-voltage components both inside and outside of the vehicle the exact properties required.
These engineering plastics meet the requirements in flame retardance, color stability, mechanics, and electric insulation. At the same time, the intrinsic insulating properties add to the safety in the vehicle.
BASF has a portfolio of various polyamide 6 and 66 grades available to ensure dependable microelectronics in control equipment and sensors that help prevent electric corrosion damage to circuits. Various Ultramid®EQ grades marketed by BASF are pure and contain almost no electrically active or corrosive substances, such as halides. The material also has heat aging resistance properties.
Electronic Sensor Technologies for Autonomous Driving
In driverless vehicles, the number of sensors will increase significantly, relieving drivers of many driving tasks. BASF has contributed to a number of sensitive electronic sensor technologies with its unique portfolio of hydrolytically resistant PBT grades. BASF offers radar-optimized plastics used for radar transmission and absorption that increase the accuracy of the radar sensors, thereby improving the functionality of the automated vehicle with greater cost efficiency.
Plastic solutions are now a possibility for a lightweight
construction as many of the components are now actively cooled, meaning that heat no longer needs to be dissipated via the housing. For example: flame-retardant Ultramid® grades A3U42G6 and B3U50G6. Housings that contain high-voltage electric components must be electrically shielded to prevent compromising the surrounding area.
Metal coatings on the plastic housing parts are one of the possible solutions that BASF is pursuing. Coating in this way can provide good shielding of the magnetic field. In addition, engineering plastics offer the advantage of integrating additional functions into the component. In prototype pre-series projects with customers, it has already been able to show that plastic housings manufactured using this process are lighter and more economical than comparable die-cast aluminum housings.
BASF's Ultramid® Product Range
Source: BASF