Plastic/metal hybrid technology can improve stiffness and reduce the weight of bicycle frames. Hybrid construction also gives designers more freedom to integrate multifunctional parts and lower production costs.

Pittsburgh, Pa.--Jobwerx News-- by Timothy Palmer Sr. Design Engineer Bayer Polymers-- Plastic/metal hybrid technology encapsulates thin, sheet-metal stampings in a glass-filled polyamide.

The result is a single integrated structural part that out-performs comparable versions in either plastic or metal alone. The technique uses the injection-molding process to create rib structures made out of 30% glass-reinforced PA 6 that are mechanically interlocked inside a steel U-shaped channel.

This structure bears heavier loads and weighs less than ordinary equivalents. With this technology, features that are expensive to form in sheet metal are easily integrated via plastic overmolding and tight dimensional tolerances are possible in mass production.

The first commercial part using the technology was the front-end module (FEM) carrier developed and manufactured by Faurecia for the 1998 Audi A6. Compared to a conventional GMT (glass-mat thermoplastic) design the metal/plastic hybrid FEM weighed 10% less while lowering investment and direct costs by 25 and 10%, respectively. Ford Motor Co. also chose plastic/metal parts for the grille opening reinforcement (GOR) on the 2000 Focus. Here, the new component weighed 40% less and investment costs were half those of a pure metal design. Seventeen different functional features were integrated into the part using injection molding.

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