The extremely durable plastics used by cab are the material of choice in new Mercedes SLK

 
Karlsruhe is home to cab’s “think tank”, our in-house development department. This is where our devices that are to be used across industry, by service providers and in business take shape. Feedback gained from the daily use of the devices is combined with new pioneering ideas, existing materials are improved, more environmentally friendly materials created and traditional designs are upgraded with bold new design lines.

Our new line of devices uses innovative, state-of-the art extremely durable plastics. They exhibit high impact strength, excellent scratch resistance and high surface hardness. They significantly reduce the overall weight of the devices and are easy to clean and maintain. The material mix blended to simplifying the recycling process and lower the impact on the environment.

These new plastics, the Polycarbonate-ABS-Blends from Bayer MaterialScience, are the material of choice in the premium class of the automotive industry due to the outstanding material properties.

Image source: Daimler AG

A new application of polycarbonate-ABS blends (PC+ABS) is premiering together with the new Mercedes SLK. The base version of the convertible is equipped with an electrohydraulic vario roof system having a roughly 0.8 square meter roof element of Bayblend® T85 XF from Bayer MaterialScience. The roof element, which is coated in the body color offline, demonstrates that this high-performance material makes it possible to take thermoplastic exterior bodywork parts installed horizontally to an entirely new dimension with respect to size while still satisfying the very stringent requirements for comfort, optical quality and dimensional accuracy.
 

• Source: Bayer MaterialScience