A Comparison of Different Technologies for Automotive Component Production by a Life Cycle Perspective

For several decades now, plastic components have been used more and more in the automotive industry, both for supporting and for aesthetic elements. For such uses, goals like reduction of weight and of production costs, improvement of production plant flexibility, have assumed an ever increasing importance and have been considered important for companies to define their capability on answering to market requirements and challenges. Also the reduction of environmental impacts related to production, use and disposal of these components, was considered as an important goal during recent years.

With the aim of investigating some alternative production cycles of plastic components, the paper shows the process and the results of comparison between some different ways to develop the molding and plating processes using the Life Cycle Assessment methodology. Such approach is introductory to the following evaluation of a specific component, a car trim, which has not a complex geometry but that was considered useful to initial targets of a comparison involving a plethora of possible different solutions.