Abstract
Keywords
Body Panel, SMC, RTM, Hand Lay-up
Abstract
Recently weight reduction is increasingly needed in automotive industry to improve fuel efficiency and to meet CO 2 emission requirement. In this paper, we developed plastic body components for a lightweight concept car. Hood, door and tailgate were made of glass fiber reinforced sheet molding compound (SMC) whereas floor panel was made of glass/carbon fiber reinforced resin transfer molding (RTM). For the SMC components a low profile class A and a low density material were newly developed for outer and inner panel, respectively. Reaction injection molding (RIM) technique was applied on fender and hand lay-up was used for other skin body components containing roof, side outer panel, quarter panel and back panel and so on. Composite body-in-white (BIW) was prepared using the plastic components and the structural stiffness was tested. The durability of a lightweight car was also evaluated using a road simulator. Finite element analysis (FEA) was also performed in order to optimize the thickness of plastic body components. As a result we could obtain a 47kg lighter car than steel-based one.