Design for Carbon Fiber Lamination of PMI Foam Cored CFRP Sandwich Composite Applied to Automotive Rear Spoiler

Abstract

In general, foam cored sandwich composites, wherein a polymer foam for structural materials is disposed at the center and a heterogeneous material such as CFRP or GFRP is bonded to one or both sides of the polymer foam, are excellent with regard to their volume-to-weight and vibration damping characteristics. For this reason, foam cored sandwich composites are mainly used in the transportation field and has applications across various fields. This study aims to apply a foam cored CFRP sandwich composite to an automotive rear spoiler. To reduce the weight compared to conventional rear spoiler with ABS/PC, we did the lamination design of the carbon weave of the foam cored CFRP sandwich composite. Then, the PMI foam cored CFRP sandwich composite spoiler was compared with the conventional ABS/PC spoiler and CFRP spoiler for mechanical behavior through finite element analysis. The results demonstrated that our PMI foam cored CFRP sandwich composite spoiler was 7.81 times more secure and 43.6 % lighter than the ABS/PC spoiler.