Carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) have been recognized as the most ideal light-weight material in automotive industry due to their superior mechanical and chemical properties, including high strength, high stiffness, high fracture toughness, corrosion resistance, high damping capacity, and so on. The application of CFRP can significantly improve the service life, fuel efficiency, safety and comfort of a vehicle. The conventional molding technology of CFRP originated from the high variety, low volume and high cost production of aviation industry; so the mainstream vehicle manufacturers have developed several new rapid molding processes in order to meet the requirements of high productivity, low cost and mass production of vehicle components. In this paper, the properties and advantages of CFRP are introduced by comparing with traditional light-weight materials such as high strength steel, aluminum and magnesium alloys. Several promising rapid molding technologies of CFRP with typical application examples are described and analyzed.

automotive carbon fiber reinforced plastics  /  performance  /  rapid molding  /  light-weight material