Future Prospects Of Carbon-Fibre For Automotive Applications

Vehicle mass can be reduced to some extent through optimised vehicle design, which is a highly iterative process, wherein design is optimised either by eliminating part and/ or function redundancy across the vehicle systems and also part consolidation. However, significant mass reduction can be achieved when high density steel in vehicle components can be replaced with lower density material such as Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS), aluminium, magnesium or composites. There are various critical challenges that need to be addressed to successfully use the lightweight materials for vehicle applications.