Method for cost and weight-efficient material diversity and partitioning of a carbon fibre composite body structure

• Published in: Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Part D, Journal of automobile engineering Journal of automobile engineering, 2015
• Main Authors: Mårtensson, Per, Zenkert, Dan, Åkermo, Malin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: body structure; Concept phase; diversity of automotive material; Farkostteknik; material selection; process selection; structural composites; Vehicle and Maritime Engineering
• ISSN: 2041-2991; 0954-4070
• DOI: 10.1177/0954407015578037

A method for the early concept phase is proposed, which is aimed at limiting the financial and performance-related riskswhen designing a carbon fibre composite automotive body structure. The method manages the structural requirementsimposed on the complete body structure and analyses the suitability of different carbon fibre material systems and pro-cesses. It also studies whether a high level of material diversity is desirable and the way in which to identify the optimalpartition of the body structure from a material system and manufacturing process selection point of view. Furthermore,since composite materials include both laminated materials and quasi-isotropic materials, an approach is presented thatenables the comparison of these materials variants during conceptual material selection. A case study exemplifies themethod and the results show that, in spite of the cost-sensitive nature of the automotive industry, utilization of the max-imum performance of these expensive composite materials is more important than efforts to achieve a rapid manufac-turing process.