A Cost/Performance Comparison of Die Cast Zinc and Glass-Reinforced Thermoplastics

In an earlier paper, a series of comparison tests were described that verified the cost/performance advantage of die-cast zinc over five unreinforced, engineering thermoplastics in tension, flexure, creep, impact, and fatigue when compared under identical test procedures and specimen geometries as dictated by plastics industry standards. Additional tests showed the superiority of die-cast zinc over these same thermoplastics in regard to thread strength, dimensional stability, heat distortion, weathering, flammability, and chemical stress cracking.

This paper reports on a continuation of these same series of test procedures where die-cast zinc is compared with six 40% glass-reinforced thermoplastics. Again the results continue to show the cost/performance superiority of die-cast zinc over the reinforced thermoplastics tested.