Implementation of Composites and Plastics Materials for Vehicle Lightweight

Due to ever more severe environmental regulations, safety standards and rise of fuel cost, design of lightweight vehicle is becoming a challenging task in automotive industry. For these reasons, multidisciplinary design approaches are becoming mandatory that takes into account all parties’ interests. The thesis addresses the potential use of composites, nanomodified composites, thermoplastic and smart hot melts adhesives materials in selected automotive applications to achieve lightweight vehicle. Special attention was paid to specific parts of vehicle structures that are directly related to occupant and pedestrian safety concerns such as B-pillar, frontal bumper subsystem, and engine subframe. Two approaches were implemented to design composites and thermoplastic intensive vehicle components: experimental test and numerical simulation approaches. In experimental approach, experimental method was developed to establish reliable test procedure to characterize composite materials. Then, selected materials were manufactured and characterized under quasi-static and dynamic loading conditions. Furthermore, selected nano-modified composite materials were characterized to understand effect of presence of nano-clays into the matrix on the mechanical behavior of base material. On the other hand, thermoplastic material was modified with short glass fibers to improve its mechanical behavior for frontal vehicle system application. Besides, in this thesis adhesive joint was considered as alternative solution to achieve vehicle lightweight targets. Detailed material characterization and parametric study of hot melt adhesive (HMA) single lap joint were performed for bumper subsystem application. Accelerated ageing were also performed on selected HMA to represent the worst environmental condition in which the bumper subsystem could be exposed. Also, selected hot-melt adhesive was modified by nano-metal particles to obtain smart adhesive that allows bonded vehicle components to be easily detached during disassembly process. Particularly, simplified form of composite B-pillar (T-joint) was manufactured and quasi- static experimental tests were performed to validate the results obtained from numerical simulations. In numerical approach, composite and thermoplastic vehicle components were modeled, they are presented in chapters from seven to nine. Commercially available software have been used for these simulations. Structural analysis and optimizations were performed to obtain a competitive performance in terms of strength, stiffness and crash worthiness against conventional material solutions. The results found from experimental and numerical simulation works revealed that composites and thermoplastics materials can deliver better performances under static and crashing load conditions. Using those materials, considerable amount of vehicle weight reduction was also achieved by keeping the desired design performance criteria. It is also worth to underline that manufacturing process and joining techniques are some of the main factors that should be taken into consideration during design of composite and thermoplastic components for vehicle applications.