Environmental regulations calling for increased fuel efficiency and reduced emissions are influencing the design of almost every vehicle component. Lightweight structural materials will play an important role in meeting these challenges, alongside efforts to downsize engines and add power-boost technologies, and the development of hybrid and electric powertrains.
Opportunities for composite technologies can be found in most areas of the car – including high temperature and corrosion resistant engineering thermoplastics for the engine compartment, through to SMC for body panels, to carbon fibre reinforced plastic monocoques.
In the September/October issue of Reinforced Plastics we take a look at the automotive composites market in the following features:
- Not just another road trip Composites are in the materials mix for lightweight automotive design.
- Carbon composite car body panels gain traction with Gurit Automotive We visit composite materials specialist Gurit’s facility for producting carbon fibre reinforced plastic body panels for prestige cars.
- Lightweight automotive design with HP-RTM The potential of the high-pressure resin transfer moulding (HP-RTM) process in series production of composite automotive components.
- Glass composite offers benefits for CNG tanks How compressed natural gas (CNG) cylinders for natural gas powered cars offers a promising market for glass fibre reinforced composite.
These features will be published on the Reinforced Plastics website over the coming week.s
