Smart, efficient reinforcement of automotive structures using carbon fibre tape (SMART-Tape)

挑战：为了满足社会对公共交通和个人移动性的未来需求，需要开发用于生产负担得起的、资源有效的和可预测的结构部件的技术。这就要求我们继续转向使用轻质材料和灵活、快速的制造方式，而包括碳纤维在内的高性能纤维增强聚合物（FRP）复合材料非常适合这些需求。FRP制造低重量、高强度结构的能力已在高端汽车/赛车运动和航空航天领域得到证实。然而，高性能FRP的广泛应用仍然面临两个重大障碍：成本：碳纤维等高性能增强材料价格昂贵，阻碍了其在主流汽车和其他行业（如铁路、能源和建筑）的广泛应用。制造：复合材料部件的制造往往是批量生产，且相对缓慢，限制了产量和灵活性。SMART-Tape将通过开发新型多材料（混合）工艺来克服这些障碍，将碳纤维增强热塑性胶带与低成本金属和聚合物基材结合使用，用于批量汽车应用。碳纤维胶带将通过机器人自动纤维铺放（AFP）在智能，有效的方式来提高强度和/或其它性能。因此，将使用最少量的高成本、高性能碳纤维材料，以获得最大效果。SMART-Tape将开发和优化材料和工艺，并在实际汽车案例研究零件上演示该技术。虚拟表示将制造技术的灵活性，以展示其广泛的适用性。该项目将为汽车原始设备制造商和一级组织提供重要证据，证明这种多材料方法的好处，鼓励对英国供应链的投资，并将其置于智能，高效和灵活制造的最前沿。

THE CHALLENGE:To meet society's future requirements for mass transport and personal mobility, there is a need to develop technologies for producing structural components that are affordable, resource efficient and predictable. This will require a continued shift towards the use of lightweight materials and flexible, rapid manufacturing.High-performance fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites, including carbon fibre, are well-suited to these demands. The ability of FRPs to create low weight, high strength structures has been demonstrated in high-end automotive/motorsport and aerospace. However, two significant barriers to the widespread use of high-performance FRPs remain:Cost: high-performance reinforcements such as carbon fibres are expensive, precluding their wide-spread use in mainstream automotive and other sectors such as rail, energy and construction.Manufacturing: composite part manufacturing tends to be batch-based and relatively slow, constraining both production volumes and flexibility.THE PROPOSED SOLUTION:SMART-Tape will overcome these barriers by developing novel multi-material (hybrid) processes, using carbon fibre-reinforced thermoplastic tapes in conjunction with low-cost metallic and polymeric substrates, for volume automotive applications.Carbon fibre tapes will be placed onto substrate components by robotic Automated Fibre Placement (AFP) in an intelligent, efficient manner, to improve strength and/or other properties. Therefore, the minimum amount of high-cost, high-performance carbon fibre material will be used to give the maximum effect.SMART-Tape will develop and optimise the materials and processes, and demonstrate the technology on real-life automotive case study parts. Virtual representations will be made of the flexibility of the manufacturing technique to showcase its wide applicability. The project will provide vital evidence to automotive OEMs and Tier 1 organisations of the benefits of this multi-material approach, encouraging investment in the UK supply chain and putting it at the forefront of intelligent, efficient and flexible manufacturing.