Advantages of carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic composites in the automotive field

2025-09-16 14:07:58

We can already see carbon fiber products on today's cars, such as BMW cars, including large vehicles with modified carbon fiber roofs, carbon fiber hoods and carbon fiber steering wheels, etc., including the new Golf cars also have carbon fiber decorative strips. However, for scientific research, the use of carbon fiber on cars is not only better looking, but also because carbon fiber composite automotive products have more advantages, especially for thermoplastic carbon fiber composites. This article will look at the advantages of carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic composites in the automotive field.

Carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic composites have brought very obvious advantages to our automotive parts industry, which are mainly manifested as follows.

(1) Light weight: The most direct impact of reducing vehicle weight is energy saving, acceleration and braking performance improvement. A 10% reduction in vehicle weight reduces fuel consumption by 6% to 8%, emissions by 5% to 6%, 0-100 km/h acceleration by 8% to 10%, and braking distance by 2 to 7m.

(2) Safety: Reducing the weight of the vehicle body can move the center of gravity of the vehicle downward, improve the steering stability of the vehicle, make the operation of the vehicle safer and more stable, and have an excellent energy absorption rate. The collision energy absorption capacity is six times that of steel. It reaches seven times that of aluminum, and three to four times that of aluminum, which further ensures the safety of the car.

(3) Comfort: High vibration reduction effect. Light alloy takes 9 seconds to stop vibrating, while it takes 2 seconds to stop. It also contributes greatly to improving the NVH (noise, vibration and harshness) of the vehicle. It greatly improves the comfort of the car.

(4) Reliability: When the fatigue strength is high, the fatigue strength of steel and aluminum is 30% to 50% of the tensile strength, and can reach up to 70% to 80%. The fatigue reliability of the material is greatly improved.

(5) Improve the level of body development: The designability is stronger than metal, and it is easier to achieve "platformization, modularization and integration" of body development.

The body and metal platform of the hybrid body structure can greatly reduce the number of parts, reduce tooling investment and shorten the development cycle compared to the traditional car body structure. Especially for new energy vehicle companies, the car body can not only save investment in stamping, welding production lines, mold fixtures, etc., reduce the ratio of fixed assets to assets, and optimize the company's asset allocation structure, but also have a greater influence in market promotion.