The XI Spanish National Congress on Composite Materials is organized by the Rey Juan Carlos University, AEMAC and FIDAMC, and its main sponsors are AIRBUS Group, ACITURRI, AERNNOVA, HEXCEL, ALESTIS Aerospace and TEAMS. CIDAUT participated presenting two different papers, one dedicated to development of material models for short fiber reinforced materials entitled “Implementation of a Methodology to Consider the Injection Process in the Design of Short Fiber Reinforced Components”, and a second one focused on the implementation of design methodologies for continuous carbon fiber composites for automotive safety components entitled “Optimization Procedures for the Design of Active Safety Components in Composite Materials.”
The MATCOMP series of National Congresses is one of the most important meetings between the academic, scientific and industrial communities within the composite materials field in Spain. The main objective was the establishment of a communication channel between the industry and the technical and scientific community to promote research, development, innovation
This year CIDAUT's contribution was focused on the design of automotive components. Nowadays everything turns around weight reduction, new environmental standards, less emissions, therefore all these inputs are calling for sustainability in mobility, which will be achieved with less pollution power trains and light weight designs.
Short fiber reinforced components have considerably improved mechanical properties in terms of stiffness and structural strength thanks to the fiber contribution to their performance. Although used in the automotive industry for a long time, the influence of the manufacturing process is rarely taken into account because of the lack of an easy design methodology. CIDAUT research goes through combining complex material models with thermal and mechanical behavior in order to fulfill the OEM requirements and offer a light and high performance product.
If weight reduction is considered, then advanced composite materials, and especially those combining continuous fiber with plastic matrix are very well poised for growth. In this context our research carries out the development of a suspension arm, continuous fiber and plastic matrix is rarely found in active safety components. The most critical load cases have been selected from the most common maneuvers of the B segment vehicle. The packaging and manufacturing requirements have been taken into account during the development. Furthermore, new joints have been developed between the control arm and the surrounding components, because it has not been possible to apply the same solutions as in metallic parts.
Finally we have accomplished the objectives, developing a control arm with a mass reduction over 40% and the same performance of a metal predecessor.
If you want to know more about our researches in the field of composite materials, get in touch with us, we are always happy to share our experiences and find new collaboration opportunities. www.cidaut.es/en/contact