Long life tail light sets new demands for temperature resistance. (Engineering Materials).(Brief Article)(Company Profile)

British Plastics & Rubber, March, 2002

Philips has designed a new vehicle tail light bulb intended to last the life of the car -- reckoned to be 850,000 km -- rather than the 70,000 km expected for a standard bulb today. With the new HiPerVision bulb has come a new socket, which, because of its snap-fit design to enable high speed bulb manufacture, was designed in plastic instead of metal.

The HiPerVision bulb is a glass capsule filled with xenon gas and gives the same lighting performance as a conventional 25 Watt bulb, but with a power draw of just 16 Watt. As the bulb holder is in direct contact with the capsule it is exposed to constant and peak temperatures which can run up to 220 degC.

To achieve the necessary mechanical performance over the anticipated lifetime of the bulb, at the...