Saving Energy with Revolutionary Composites

June 8, 2003 – Vol.8 No.11

SAVING ENERGY WITH REVOLUTIONARY COMPOSITES.

Composites - combinations of plastic resins, often made from hydrocarbons, embedded with manmade fibers from other hydrocarbons or glass, carbon, or natural fibers, can be used in vehicles to make them lighter, more fuel efficient and durable, without sacrificing safety - possibly enhancing it. Composite parts won’t corrode and will probably outlast many of the metal parts typically used in most vehicles today.

Lightweight composites seem a ideal replacement for steel.

Yet one of the drawbacks - at least in the past - to the greater use of composites in vehicles is the time it takes to produce parts made from them.

New cars usually roll off a modern assembly line every one or two minutes. Each part most be supplied to the line at at least the same rate. Thus each individual part, say a fender or a door skin, is manufactured at a rate no slower than the time a vehicle takes to leave the factory. (Unless, of course, identical parts come from a number of sources.)

Not too many years ago composites were all hand made, far too slow for the kind of mass production that spits out Hondas or Fords. But according to a news report in the San Antonio (Texas) Express, a company called Automotive Design and Composites claims the automotive industry once predicted that composites would surpass steel when parts can be made in two minute cycles. That company, using a new kind of carbon fiber developed by oil company Conoco, now also claims it is far exceeded that cycle time and can churn out composite parts in 20 seconds.

Revolutionary? Possibly.

The company is now in early talks with Toyota to build pick-up truck beds, and other parts, out of carbon fiber composites. The beds can be molded in one piece and would replace steel beds now made of eight or nine stampings. An agreement with Toyota could also lead to new job opportunities in the company’s home town of San Antonio.

Automotive Design, as well as its parent company, VS Composites, is well aware of the role its products could play in a new generation of advanced battery, hybrid or fuel cell vehicles. The company and parent have apparently made parts for Ford, General Motors, and DaimlerChrysler for use in advanced vehicles. The use of the light-weight materials was sought after to increase the vehicle’s range between refuelings.

Automotive Design and Composites, on their own, has also developed an off-beat vehicle body made of composites which could be used with a variety of power trains. Visit them at http://www.automotivecomposites.com/