| ABSTRACT |
Weight savings in vehicles enhances fuel efficiency and decreases maintenance costs, especially in mass transit systems. Lightweight composite materials, such as glass fiber and carbon reinforced polymers have been used to replace traditional steel and aluminium components. At present, carbon fibers suitable for use in automotive composites cost more than RM 22.00/lb, making them prohibitively costly for general use. It has been determined that materials to be used economically in the manufacture of automobiles, the price must be less than RM 15.70/lb. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a new carbon reinforced composite (CFC) that achieve desired performance levels, reduce weight and thus improve energy consumption, as well as cheaper price. In this research, a certain automotive body panels (i.e., bumper, hook, roof and tail) were designed, analyzed and manufactured using thermoplastic composite materials. The design featured a sandwich reinforced composites with natural carbon based on coconut trunk fiber (CTF) or coconut shell (CS)/ polypropylene face sheets and natural carbon based on coconut trunk fiber (CTF) or coconut shell (CS)/ polypropylene honeycomb core as constituents that provide low weight, high strength and energy absorption benefits. The coconut trunk fiber and coconut shell and were converted into carbon material using hydrolysis method. The body panels were designed using ABAQUS CAE and analyzed using Finite Element Analysis ABAQUS/Explicit. The face sheets and honeycomb core were adhesively bonded with new adhesive material and tested to validate the model. The failure of the body panel occurred by adhesive failure the load reached 11.3 kN, in which shows an impressive result. The ¿CARCELL¿ exhibited excellent weight saving of more than 50% with the cost is relatively low about RM 15.70/lb if compared with the present commercial Carbon Fiber (RM 22.00 ¿ 32.00/lb). Figure 1 shows the design concept of automotive body panels using CARCELL.
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