Jul 3 2006
“So far, a lot is still made of sheet steel but even more will be made of plastic in the future” – this applies to the small distributor box made by the F-tronic company. The reason for this material substitution is that plastic proved to be a much sturdier choice for the doors and frames of the boxes. In choosing Luran S, the experts of this manufacturing company turned to an ASA made by BASF. Luran S is an acrylonitrile-styrene-acrylate copolymer and is a member of the PlasticsPlus product line of the Styrenics Operating Division.
Housing damage
When used in construction, small distributor boxes are particularly susceptible to scratches and dents on the housing. But it is precisely in the construction sector that such damage cannot be avoided and it is quite noticeable on the sheet steel structures that have been used up until now.
“We need an impact-resistant and UV-stable material. With Luran S, we can now market doors and frames for these distributor boxes in a version that is vandalism-proof,” explains Winfried Fohs, managing director at F-tronic.
Test series with other impact resistant plastics have demonstrated that BASF's ASA is the far superior material, especially in terms of its chemical resistance. Moreover, this material fulfilled all of the re-quirements in terms of dimensional stability, surface quality and stress cracking resistance.
Cooperation with BASF
The collaboration with F-tronic is planned for the long run. In this vein, F-tronic is aiming to expand the market for plastic specialties in this segment by creating new applications such as the small distribu-tor boxes. “It is precisely with its specialties that BASF endeavours to help medium-sized plastic processors to come up with new, profit-able business ideas,” explains Torben Krieger, BASF’s Key Account Manager for F-tronic. F-tronic will produce tens of thousands of the new small distributor boxes per year.
F-tronic
The current 50 employees of this company, founded in 1990, manu-facture electric installation products that are sold exclusively through the German and international electronics wholesale markets. Among the German wholesalers alone, F-tronic has increased its sales by more than 30 percent in the past two years. “We want to continue to grow, so we put three new, automatically controlled silos into opera-tion in early 2006,” explains Jürgen Goldinger, F-tronic’s managing director.
PlasticsPlus™
BASF has bundled a product line of high-performance specialty plas-tics under the umbrella of PlasticsPlus™, comprising high-performance styrene plastics, biodegradable materials and foams. Whenever exacting requirements have to be met, the experts and products of PlasticsPlus™ offer a high level of diversity, reliability, innovative solutions and partnership.