CAMISMA

Carbon Fibre/Amide/Metal Based Structural Interior Component

New fibre reinforced plastics for lightweight vehicles

In view of the climatic change and the steady decreasing capacity of fossil energy sources, it is getting more important for the research and development divisions to develop low-emission and resource-efficient vehicles. The vehicle weight plays as consumption-relevant aspect a crucial role. The need for a lighter vehicle structure is increased by the development of battery powered electric vehicles because the high weight of today's batteries must be compensated in order to meet the customer requirements for the vehicle performance. Common materials which are used in automotive production are high-strength steels and light metals. So far attempts were made in particular through the use of high-strength steels and reducing the plate thickness or substitution of steel by light metals, to realize weight savings. These options are now largely exhausted. That is why we need to search for new materials and new ways to construct a vehicle.

In this context, fibre-reinforced plastics with carbon fibres attracts ever-increasing attention, which is a known material in aerospace industry. It advantageous property like the high specific stiffness and the high design flexibility makes it an interesting material for new lightweight designs. However it is too expensive and too time consuming to use it in the automotive constructions. Furthermore, you cannot compete with the conventional sheet metal forming economically. In addition to that the connection of fibre reinforced plastic parts to the metal-based vehicle structure has not been satisfactorily solved.

The goal of project CAMISMA is to present an economic approach, which allows access to low-cost carbon fibre reinforced material systems.

Economical production of innovative fibre-reinforced components

The aim of the project is to develop an innovative lightweight-design for the automotive interior area. The research will be about a multi material system, which is based on a smart combination of three material classes: New, low-cost carbon fibre fleece is combined with inexpensive manufactured heat-deformable carbon fibre composites and with metallic composite parts to an attached unit. The result of the combination of these three materials will be a minimal weighted component at a low cost production.

To demonstrate the feasibility of the concept, a seat backrest structure is developed, manufactured and tested as a functional model. It is targeted to have a weight saving of more than 40% compared to conventional metal-based constructions.