Enabling the development of safe lightweight next-generation vehicles using high-performance composite materials

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The proposed research aims to investigate the potential for substantial weight reduction of front end automotive structural components using high performance carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) composite materials fabricated by a rapid high pressure resin transfer moulding (HP-RTM) process. These materials are known for their high specific strength and stiffness characteristics, low densities (1.5 g/cm3) and high energy absorption capabilities under crash conditions, and have been identified as key materials for enabling substantial weight reductions in mass market vehicles. Although high performance CFRP composites have not been integrated into frontal crash structures of automobiles to date due to high cost and manufacturing time constraints, newly developed processing techniques such as HP-RTM can provide the required rapid production rates that will allow the realization of CFRPs into mass-market vehicles. The research will address fundamental material characterization and part fabrication processing challenges in order to develop an accurate impact simulation platform, which will be required to integrate high performance lightweight CFRP composites into energy absorbing structures of next-generation automobiles. The inherent processing defects will be assessed, and coupled to the highly complex deformational response of the CFRP composite in order to predict impact performance of CFRP parts. As a validation, fabricated CFRP parts with differing geometries representative of frontal vehicle structures will be tested under various loading conditions and the model predictions will be assessed against the experiments.