With high-strength thermoplastics, compound manufacturers make wheel designers' job easier

This makes the bicycle one of the main players in the mobility megatrend. In the midst of this megatrend are also the people who create one of the technological foundations for bicycle designers and their innovative design ideas for bicycle components of all kinds: the plastics compounders or application developers who ensure the composition and thus the performance of the required materials.

Plastics compounders and application developers have the knowledge, experience and creative drive to provide designers and manufacturers of bicycle components with the materials they need to ultimately inspire cyclists of every stripe. Like Lot van Hooijdonk from the Netherlands, for example. Quote*: "Cycling is like a piece of magic: it has only advantages." Lot should know - she's an alderwoman for the municipality of Utrecht - one of the three most bike-friendly cities in the world, according to the Copenhagenize Index.

Whether weight reduction, strength, lightweight construction, aluminum replacement - by means of high-strength thermoplastics and comprehensive expertise, compounders make designers' working lives easier.

A practice-oriented, experienced application developer can be a valuable "player" for his "teammate" on the manufacturer's side - a permanent, accepted project collaborator. He can offer him comprehensive technical application advice, ranging from materials consulting and component design (keyword: metal replacement) to mold design and processing support.

And that along the entire process chain: from design to prototype construction to series production. For a single product as well as for an entire group of components. From the initial idea for a component - the first "pencil stroke" - to the time when the finished, tested part is ready for use on the table.

For one component:

Advantage: Recipe expertise

A key element of comprehensive technical application consulting is the thermal design of components or metal substitution (which can be interesting for a number of reasons - be it weight savings, the desired reduction of the carbon footprint, corrosion or resource scarcity).

A really good compounder/application developer can always play to his strengths here if he is able to draw on a large number of high-performance plastics or thermoplastics/polymers that "keep pace" with every development stage and every development step. Simply because he can always modify them in such a way that they reach the performance levels of metals or exceed their performance limits.

Be it injection-molded high-performance plastics with glass or carbon fibers, wear and friction-optimized materials, mixed-fiber compounds, ultra-high-strength carbon- fiber variants, or even long-fiber thermoplastics: they all enable a designer to replace metals - and here in particular products made of steel and aluminum, as well as die- cast aluminum and magnesium.