Fibre Reinforced Plastics for Automotive Applications -
Summary of 13 Years R & D in the Collaborative Research Centre 332

Dipl.-Ing. Thorsten Parr,
Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Henning Wallentowitz,
Institut für Kraftfahrwesen Aachen (ika) Aachen

Summary:

In the frame of the Collaborative Research Centre 332 (SFB 332), funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), the application of fibre reinforced plastics (FRP) at different industrial areas of application has been investigated by several institutes at the Aachen University (RWTH). One main point has been put on the automobile fields of application. Based on the results reached by the SFB 332, the status quo of the research for automobile applications will be presented in this paper. Thereby a particular focal point is laid on design with fibre reinforced materials in the automobile development process under utilization of numerical and experimental methods. Finally future automobile application potentials of the material will be outlined.



Fig. 1: Examples for FEA-application in order to design FRP components