Experimental and finite element creep analyses of plastics used in automotive instrument panel

Creep behavior of PPF and PC/ABS was studied which are widely used plastics in automotive instrument panel. Material properties were obtained for various temperatures from tensile tests and three point bending tests were performed for different loadings and temperatures. Time-hardening version of power law creep equation were obtained from the experiment and creep behavior each plastic could be represented in simple form. FE creep analysis results matched well with the experimental results while the difference between numerical and experimental results became larger as load increased.