Industries and Markets

By Nancy D. Lamontagne

Plastics are used for a wide range of medical applications such as tubing, implants, bioresorbable scaffolds, drug delivery, and medical devices. New manufacturing equipment and processes are helping medical plastics meet a variety of complex requirements while keeping costs and material use low. New materials are also upping the performance of medical plastics.

Preventing infection is important for this market. New materials and novel applications of plastics are helping prevent infection during medical procedures, and alternative techniques are giving manufacturers new options for sterilizing plastic devices. Packaging is also important for ensuring that devices stay sterile throughout their shelf life and during use.
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ANTEC comes a bit early in 2012 – in the first week of April – being co-located again with NPE, this time in Florida. Luckily for those of us fighting the early-spring blahs, we can look forward to Orlando’s average high temperature for April 1^st of about 78°F (26°C). And we can expect to see and hear about a lot of new technologies and products, some of them literally hot off the presses in the NPE exhibition halls.

This article attempts to preview the large number of ANTEC paper presentations and events, plus a sampling of NPE events and new product releases. (Note that all information below was current as of press time in early January.)

 
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*From the September 2011 issue of Plastics Engineering

New and enhanced plastics are vital to underhood performance

By Pat Toensmeier

Underhood parts are breaking ground in dynamic and demanding applications, creating sizeable opportunities in coming years for engineering thermoplastics and thermosets.

Factors driving developments include greater efforts by auto OEMs to reduce vehicle weight through metal replacement and part consolidation, the need to lower component cost, and rising standards for fuel consumption, heat resistance, durability and dimensional stability. In some cases the ability of plastics to provide sustainability—i.e., green design—will be a factor.

Applications that are emerging for underhood (which in this report includes powertrain and chassis components) read like a checklist of engineered and structural parts. Notable are oil pans, fan shrouds and cooling systems; engine, valve and timing-chain covers; fully integrated oil modules; thermostat housings; electric throttle bodies; transmission seals, thrust washers and bearing cages; engine mounts and transmission cross beams. For hybrid-electric and electric vehicles, battery pack and recharging components and high-voltage connectors are on the list.
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