CARBON FIBRE COMPOSITE SPACE FRAMES FOR SPORTS CARS USING NOVEL TEXTILE COMPOSITES - MATERIALS, PROCESS DEVELOPMENT AND STRUCTURAL TESTING

摘要

The increasing demand for weight reduction in the automotive industry highlights the potential benefits of the use of carbon fibre in body structures. However, current carbon fibre processing technology for full body structures relies on hand craftsmanship for lay up and is only affordable for racing and super cars. A novel manufacturing process termed Coretex [1-2] was developed to enable very fast preform lay up. It uses vacuum infusion coupled with carbon fibre braids and fabrics and expanding foam cores which allows carbon fibre composite framework structures to be made using out-of-autoclave liquid composite moulding techniques with low cost tooling. The effects of braid type, attachment of bonded skin panels and framework geometry on the stiffness of test frame structures was carried out to so as to enable the design of a full carbon fibre framework and panel structure. The carbon fibre framework and panel structure was moulded and assembled, then built into a complete sports car for subsequent road trials.