The biggest application fields of ABS are cars, electronic appliances and building materials. In automobile industry there are automotive dashboards, body outer panel, inner decorating plate, the steering wheel, sound insulation board, door locks, bumper, ventilation pipe and other parts. In terms of electrical appliances,
ABS is widely used in refrigerators, TV sets, washing machines, air conditioner, computer, copy machine and electronic appliances. As for building materials, there are ABS pipes, ABS sanitary ware, ABS decorative board, etc. In addition, ABS are widely used in packaging, furniture, sports and entertainment products, machinery and instrument industry.
Because the ABS has good comprehensive performance and molding processability, so it can be found in a wide range of applications, here are some briefly introduction:
1. Automobile Industry
Automobile industry has many parts which are made of ABS or ABS alloy, such as Shanghai Santana, whose car has 11kg ABS each one. In other vehicles, ABS usage is quite amazing. In 2000, our country car uses 35000 tons ABS. Major parts of the car such as instrument board uses PC/ABS as skeleton and the surface is PVC/ABS/BOVC made thin film. In addition, most of the car decoration inside is ABS, such as the glove box, glove box assembly, which is made from heat resistant ABS, threshold and accessories, water tank mask, etc.
2. Office Machine
ABS has high luster and easy formability, while office equipment machine needs a beautiful appearance and good touch feeling, so ABS components are widely used in telephone shell, memorizer shell and computers, fax machines, photocopiers, etc.
3. Household Appliances
Due to its high luster and easy formability, ABS also has a broad market in home appliances and small ones, such as household fax machines, audio, VCD, and a lot of vacuum cleaners also use a lot of ABS parts. Kitchen utensils apply ABS materials as well.
The main body of plastic ABS is acrylonitrile, butadiene and styrene blend or terpolymer, which is a kind of tough and rigid thermoplastic. Styrene makes ABS have favorable mould ability, gloss and rigidity; acrylonitrile gives it a good heat resistance, chemical corrosion resistance and surface hardness. Butadiene makes ABS own good impact strength and resilience in low temperature. With different proportion of three components, its performance changes also.
