Structural Analysis of Light Duty Vehicle Roof Panel Made of Carbon Fiber and Sisal Fiber Composite Material

Abstract

The natural fiber reinforced composites are being used in various fields of applications that are contributing to the replacement of conventional metals such as structural steel, mild steel and many other materials which exposed the vehicles for high weight and low fuel efficiency. For this thesis work, the composite natural fibers with carbon fiber are being used due to their light weight, higher specific strength and non–abrasive which also have economical value. The hybrid composites with different fiber lengths and reinforcements may contribute a better role than those of single fiber composites. Carbon fiber and sisal fiber are the important fibers in automobile industries for manufacturing parts of the body, frame and vehicles interior components. This thesis work deals and focuses on the Structural analysis, Modeling, Design and evaluation of mechanical properties like tensile strength, compression strength, bending and water absorption of both carbon fiber and sisal fiber hybrid composites materials for further production of vehicles roof panel and replace the new composite material into the pre-existed conventional one. Composite materials are prepared by using general polyester resin, sisal fiber and carbon fiber. The sisal fiber was woven in mat structure with fiber orientation of 00/900 and ± 450 and inserted at the middle layers between twill carbon fiber and molded together. The test specimens were prepared according to ASTM standard dimensions. From the test performed, the stress results obtained in tensile test of CFSFC of 00/900 was 193 MPa which is higher than ± 450 of 103 MPa. In the bending test the load in 00/900 fiber orientation is 2506.7 N which is higher than the maximum load of ± 450 orientation of 1620 N. In case of the compression test both 00/900 and ± 450 got the same stress of 7.7 MPa with maximum load of 23,253.3 N and 23,443.3 N loads respectively. In case of water absorption test, 00/900 is better with water absorption of 2.91% which is lower than 3.67% of ± 450. The modelling of roof panel was done using SOLIDWORK 2013 and the analysis was done using ANSYS 17.2. Both CFSFC and structural steel were found to be having equivalent stress of 9.1537 MPa with 1.4195 mm and 0.19895 mm of deformation respectively. Weight reduction of about 83 % was achieved by replacing conventional steel material with composite of carbon fiber and sisal fiber for roof panel.