The Weathering Study of PC/ASA Alloy For Automotive Exterior Applications

Abstract

Polycarbonates (PC) are used in automotive industry due to their high physical andmechanical properties like high impact resistance and ductility. Polycarbonates are blended withABS (Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene) and ASA (Acrylonitrile-Styrene-Acrylate) terpolymers forinterior and exterior applications of automotive components to achieve good physical andmechanical properties. Other reason for choosing such alloys for interior applications is the IZODimpact resistance requirement higher than 40 kJ/m2. Recently, grades of PC/ASA with UVstabilization are developed for non-painted exterior applications. The aim of our study is toinvestigate whether new developed PC/ASA could be chosen for exterior applications ofautomotive industry. In this study, the samples are prepared from injection molding and theweathering performance of PC/ASA was tested by a weather-o-meter for 1500 h at a total of 1890kJ/m2 at 340 nm with a cut-off filter at λ