Acrylic products are beautiful, anti-radiation and have high hardness, good effect of absorbing light. Acrylic materials have been widely used in thick sheet thermoforming industry in the past few years.
They are vacuum formed into general lighting lampshade, outdoor light box shell, high-end machine shell, etc. Acrylic materials are generally selected for blister processing. However, because acrylic material is brittle, it is easy to break during use. it is not easy to stretch during production and processing, and the yield is low. Therefore the overall production cost is not cheap.
In recent years, the government has become more and more strict in the control of some plastic products. All produce properties and indicators need to meet industry standards. Therefore, more and more people choose PC engineering plastics. And clients gradually replace acrylic with PC for plastic processing products.
PC is an almost colorless glassy amorphous polymer with good optical properties. PC high molecular weight resin has high toughness. Izod notched impact strength is 600~900J/m, and the heat distortion temperature of unfilled grades is about 130°C. This can be increased by 10°C after glass fiber reinforcement. The flexural modulus of PC can reach more than 2400MPa. The resin can be processed into large rigid products. Below 100°C, the creep rate under load is very low.
In addition to excellent electrical insulation, PC plastic has great extensibility, dimensional stability and chemical resistance. It also has the advantages of self-extinguishing, flame retardant and so on. It has higher hardness and strength than acrylic, and is not easy to be damaged or scratched. At the same time, PC material itself can meet the fire protection level required by industry, generally reaching B1 level. Therefore, in some special industries, choosing PC material will be more convenient and advantageous than choosing acrylic material in vacuum forming products.
At present, PC materials are widely used in high-end vacuum formed industrial products, such as high-speed rail, subway, aerospace, aircraft, automobile and other fields. Both PC and PMMA plastic sheet need heavy gauge vacuum forming machine to process.