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Lighting
Automotive interior and exterior lighting is undergoing major design changes and new processing challenges. Unique and dynamic lighting signatures serve as important style differentiators, but larger and more-complex designs with multiple components often require specialized processing, such as multi-shot molding. The ongoing industry effort to reduce vehicle weight has become more challenging due to these larger lighting configurations. Other trends include the integration of ADAS sensor systems such as LiDAR, while the adoption of cooler LED units has opened more opportunities to use polycarbonate (PC).
SABIC offers a broad portfolio of engineering thermoplastics for lenses, housings, bezels, reflectors and mechanical parts. They deliver benefits such as clarity, gloss and metallization capability for distinctive aesthetics; optimized light transmission for optical performance; impact and chemical resistance; and high flow and improved mold release for complex geometries.
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PC resins offering high transparency and brilliant gloss, high flow and excellent weathering for coated applications. |
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PC/ABS blends with good surface finish, chemical resistance and easy processing, including suitability for multi-shot molding. |
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PBT resins with high chemical resistance and high stiffness for mechanical parts under load up to 160°C. |
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Long glass fiber-reinforced PP materials featuring high stiffness and chemical resistance for parts under load up to 120°C. |
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ABS resins featuring beautiful aesthetics including brilliant gloss, as well as excellent flow characteristics. |
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PC/ASA materials with excellent aesthetics, high gloss and good weathering performance. |
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Easy-to-process, filled PP compound with high stiffness and chemical resistance. |
Ask us about automotive lighting solutions:
Outer Lenses
Enabling technologies like LED and LASER light sources, combined with the industry effort to create distinctive lighting signatures, have resulted in increasingly complex designs and a high value placed on aesthetics and quality. As part of this trend, outer lenses are taking on increasingly intricate forms. LEXAN™ resin grades for outer lenses can provide the design freedom to create complicated shapes, while delivering practical benefits including excellent transparency and impact performance.
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Inner Lenses
Adoption of lower-temperature LED technology in automotive lighting has enabled standard LEXAN™ PC resins to serve as replacements for higher-heat materials previously used for inner lenses. LEXAN resins offer up to 90% light transmission for enhanced optical performance, exceptional impact resistance and dimensional stability.
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Bezels
LEDs have created a revolution in lighting. For instance, as a relatively cool light source, LEDs have allowed PC to be used in applications such as bezels. When designing bezels for LEDs, a low draft angle enables styling freedom and a larger optical surface. However, very low angles can cause mold release problems. LEXAN™ HF4010SR resin allows customers to target draft angles lower than the recommendations for PC tools. In addition, SABIC is adding other LEXAN resin solutions for LED lighting bezels that enable complex designs, part integration for weight reduction and unique styling – including direct metallization and best-in-class surface gloss -- while decreasing cycle times and increasing productivity and cost savings.
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Reflectors
To produce the complex lighting designs that lead the market today, manufacturers need reflector materials that can provide good flow for molding intricate shapes while maintaining impact performance and producing high-gloss surfaces. Thanks to the lower temperature requirements of LED units, simple reflector shapes can be molded from PC instead of high-heat incumbent materials like co-polymers and PBT, PPS and PEI resins, which are more expensive.
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Housings
When a balance of properties and performance is needed for front or rear lighting housings, our CYCOLOY™ resins and polypropylene (PP) materials can meet critical application requirements, while enabling weight and cost reductions as well. These requirements include light weight, high stiffness, chemical resistance, weldability and glue adhesion.
Featured Product Grades
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PC/ABS blend; excellent flow and impact; high heat resistance; low temperature ductility; black and natural colors. |
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PP homopolymer; 40% talc filled; very high stiffness; high flow; good thermal stability; injection molding grade. |
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PP homopolymer; 30% short glass fiber reinforcement; black color. |
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PP resin; 20% long glass fiber reinforcement; high strength and stiffness; reduced warpage and creep. |
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PP resin; 30% long glass fiber reinforcement; high strength and stiffness; reduced warpage and creep. |