Study On Performance And Joint Of Composite Honeycomb Sandwich Structures Applied On Automotive Body

Energy saving, environmental protection and safety are the main topic of the worldautomobile industry. Auto lightweight technology is the important way to achieve this goal.Lightweight technology is very important for passenger car to improve energy conservationand emissions reduction or for the commercial vehicle to improve fuel economy. Lightweighttechnology mainly includes the use of lightweight materials and the lightweight structure.Now lightweight materials have become the leading direction of the development ofautomotive materials technology.Composite sandwich structures are widely employed in many places such as aerospacestructures, ships, cars, trains and other light weight structures because they have very highspecific stiffness and strength. It is possible using a sandwich structure to increase the bendingmoment of inertia of a structure with a minimum increase in weight. This implies that thesandwich structure can very efficiently carry the bending moment and compression. Itbecomes a kind of ideal lightweight materials for automotive. For honeycomb sandwichstructure use must consider its connection problems. This paper describes the structuralcharacteristics，the mechanical properties and the joint structures of sandwich constructionscomposite materials and its application in the car.First of all, the composite sandwich structures are prepared by using carbon fiberlaminated plate, aluminum honeycomb and epoxy resin. Basic mechanics properties ofcomposite sandwich structures are researched. The compression properties of Aluminumhoneycomb core and sandwich structures are tested respectively. Then the bending propertiesof composite sandwich structures are studied by three-point bending experiment and its finiteelement model is established in Hypermesh for simulation analysis.Secondly, the connection structures which contain inserts are prepared by using carbonfiber honeycomb sandwich structure. And shear properties of the insert joint is compared withjoint which has no insert. Test results show that strength of the connection structure whichcontains inserts is obviously higher than that of excluding inserts. The influence factors ofshear properties of insert joint is analyzed through the finite element simulation，and thethickness of honeycomb core, the thickness of cellular wall, stack sequence of panel areconsidered.Finally, mechanical connection form of and the main connection methods on car bodyare studied. Then the composite sandwich structures would used in the floor of passenger car boot. The fixed connection method of composite sandwich structures was explained.