The development of high-grade plastic components enables the production of more complex plastic products. Furthermore, the design freedom of plastics offers exceptional possibilities, especially in combination with new materials. High tolerances, even comparable to those of steel and aluminium, can be achieved with fibre reinforced plastics.

Parts of roof structures have very small tolerances. For example parallelism is therefore fundamental for parts of roof structures in vehicles.
To guarantee the tightness of hard/soft connections usually two-component injection moulding is used.

A structural part manufactured by voestalpine Plastics Solutions is the recently developed spare wheel well for one of the leading German OEM’s. This high-grade plastic product is produced by injection moulding combined with gas injection techniques and glass fibre reinforcement, inserts and aluminium inlay.
The spare wheel well protects some important electronic and mechanical components and contributes to the crash performance by its structure.

Drivers during the development process were; ergonomics, acoustic noise level reductions, functional integration and stiffness.