I News
For a certain period of time, carbon fiber for cars will inevitably remain a niche consumer product
MAI Carbon, a world-renowned carbon fiber supplier, will make Germany the world's carbon fiber material research and development center in 2020, allowing metal parts on cars to be gradually replaced by carbon fiber materials.
Can carbon fiber parts replace metal parts in cars?
High-strength and lightweight materials that are "soft on the outside and strong on the inside"
In 1861, Edison used carbon filaments as filament materials and successfully glowed for 45 hours, bringing humans into the era of electric lights.
As carbon filaments in light bulbs were replaced by tungsten filaments, carbon filaments were thrown into the corner of history for nearly a century.
Until the 1950s, when the U.S. Air Force was looking for sintering materials, it learned that the melting point of carbon was as high as 3727℃ and had high temperature resistance and high strength characteristics, so it invited carbon filaments into the laboratory again and invented carbon fiber.
Carbon fiber is a new type of fiber material with high strength and high modulus fibers with a carbon content of more than 95%. It is a microcrystalline graphite material formed by stacking organic fibers such as flake graphite microcrystals along the fiber axis and undergoing carbonization and graphitization treatment.
Carbon fiber is "soft on the outside and hard on the inside". It is lighter than metal aluminum, but stronger than steel. It is insoluble and non-swelling in organic solvents, acids and alkalis, and has outstanding corrosion resistance. It has the inherent essential characteristics of carbon materials and the softness and processability of textile fibers. It is a new generation of reinforcing fibers.
Carbon fiber is fatigue-resistant, with specific heat and conductivity between non-metals and metals, a small thermal expansion coefficient, good electrical and thermal conductivity, and good electromagnetic shielding.
Resins, curing agents and other materials are mixed in a certain proportion, and then the carbon fiber fabric is impregnated. After a series of curing treatments, a carbon fiber composite material is formed. This material has advantages that traditional metal materials do not have.
The flexibility of the thickened carbon fiber cloth is very poor, almost the same as that of rigid materials. The principle is like sticking pieces of paper into a thick stack of paper, and the stack of paper will become strong. This is the qualitative change process of carbon fiber from being as soft as paper to being as strong as steel.
Pan Ding, a researcher and doctoral supervisor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering of Donghua University, said in an interview with a reporter from China Automotive News: "The tensile strength of carbon fiber is more than 4 times that of steel, and its specific gravity is less than a quarter of that of steel." Therefore, the traditional concept of "the stronger the weight, the heavier" has been completely overturned.
Low density makes carbon fiber widely used in large aircraft manufacturing. For example, Airbus A350 and A380, Boeing 787 all use carbon fiber composite materials to reduce fuel consumption. In addition, large wind turbine blades, racing cars and high-end bicycle bodies use a large amount of carbon fiber composite materials, which is an important reason for the increase in demand for carbon fiber composite materials.
Chen Guangzu, former secretary-general of the China Automobile Industry Advisory Committee, said in an interview with reporters: "Carbon fiber has good elasticity. It can bounce up when it sinks down; it can bounce back when it is flattened."
Two weaknesses of carbon fiber: high cost and difficult recycling
"There are no major technical problems in promoting the use of carbon fiber, and the final problem is the price. In addition, the recycling of carbon fiber after large-scale use is a major problem." Chen Guangzu hopes that industry insiders will systematically consider the issue of carbon fiber.
Carbon fiber is combined with epoxy resin to form a composite material. This composite material inherits a series of advantages of carbon fiber itself, such as specific strength, specific modulus, fatigue strength, energy absorption and shock resistance, and inherits the characteristics of flexible and diverse epoxy resin formula design. Compared with aluminum alloy structural parts, carbon fiber composite materials can reduce weight by 20% to 40%. Compared with steel metal parts, carbon fiber composite materials can reduce weight by 60% to 80%.
The application of carbon fiber composite materials can reduce the weight of the whole vehicle and have a profound impact on the automobile manufacturing process.
As the use of carbon fiber composite materials in automobiles increases, the four major processes of automobile manufacturing, stamping, welding, painting and assembly, will change. For example, stamping will be replaced by molding and forging processes; vehicle assembly will no longer require so much welding; some cars will basically no longer require painting; the whole vehicle will become dozens of modules, and the assembly rhythm will become very fast. In this way, the investment cost of the assembly line will decrease accordingly. Therefore, the large-scale application of new carbon fiber composite materials will lower the entry threshold of the automobile manufacturing industry.
Carbon fiber is combined with a plastic polymer resin to become a hard and lightweight compound material favored by the industry. However, during the production process, each piece of compound material is manually separated by workers, which is very wasteful.
If someone can separate carbon fiber from landfills, carbon fiber can be recycled. The carbon fiber manufacturing process consumes a lot of energy. Using recycled carbon fiber can also save a lot of energy.
The key is that carbon fiber cannot be simply melted and reshaped like aluminum. Carbon fiber compounds gain strength by arranging long and precise carbon fibers, and then are formed under high temperature and pressure through polymer bonding. Once formed, most hard polymers cannot be melted, burned or chemically dissolved to obtain valuable fibers.
Internationally, some companies recycle carbon fiber by burning polymers, while others recycle carbon fiber by chemical treatment. No matter which method is used, the load-bearing capacity of recycled carbon fiber is greatly reduced compared to new carbon fiber. Therefore, recycled carbon fiber is often used in the production of heavy-weight and light-strength products such as tennis rackets and golf clubs. It is still a good material, but it does not perform better than aluminum and low-cost compound materials.
The current status and prospects of carbon fiber applications in automobiles
Carbon fiber materials used in automobiles can effectively reduce their own weight, while significantly reducing fuel consumption, reducing pollution and improving braking performance.
High cost is an important constraint on the mass application of carbon fiber composite materials in automobiles. The high cost of carbon fiber composite materials is mainly reflected in two aspects: one is the high production cost of carbon fiber composite materials, and the other is the high price of raw materials for carbon fiber composite materials. At present, the price of carbon fiber per kilogram in the market is more than RMB 120, which is more than 10 times the price of glass fiber.
Lu Dong, director of the Components Committee of the Sino-German Intelligent Manufacturing Alliance, said in an interview with reporters: "Carbon fiber is widely used in airplanes. Carbon fiber can be used in automobiles to achieve lightweight, but it is not very meaningful. The main problem is whether it is cost-effective. Carbon fiber is very expensive when used in automobiles. The price of a carbon fiber beam alone is more than 30,000 yuan. Even high-end brands such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz rarely use carbon fiber. Because there are not many high-end cars in China, and there are few cars with a unit price of more than 150,000 yuan, the promotion and application of carbon fiber in domestic automobiles has very limited prospects."
"Our automotive carbon fiber products are in the trial stage. Many manufacturers are trying our carbon fiber beams, carbon fiber drive shafts, carbon fiber bumpers and carbon fiber doors. Carbon fiber products are rust-free, light in weight, low in energy consumption, fatigue-resistant, and safe. The biggest problem in promoting the application of carbon fiber products in the automotive industry is that the price is very high. Low- and medium-end cars cannot afford carbon fiber products. High-end cars use a small amount of carbon fiber products.
"Without carbon fiber, the automotive industry cannot develop." Pan Ding made a shocking statement.
Chen Guangzu said: "The development of lightweight automobiles first experienced the thinning of body steel plates. After that, aluminum alloy became fashionable, and magnesium alloy, which is lighter than aluminum alloy, was used, and finally carbon fiber was used. Carbon fiber can definitely be promoted and applied in automobiles. Biofiber is environmentally friendly, recyclable, and has broad application prospects. There must be a timetable and steps. "
Pan Ding then elaborated: "Carbon fiber has been used quite a lot in automobiles and airplanes. Although carbon fiber is a little more expensive, carbon fiber beams and carbon fiber bumpers have been used very well. BMW cars are the best cars using carbon fiber and are a successful example of using carbon fiber in cars. It is light, fuel-efficient, and has low pollution. Carbon fiber has broad application prospects in automobiles."
Further talking about the benefits of using carbon fiber in automobiles, Chen Guangzu pointed out: "Aluminum alloy on airplanes has been changed to carbon fiber. The automobile industry loves new materials. The development of new automobiles starts with the development of new materials. The promotion and application of carbon fiber is the development direction of the automobile industry. Now there is a cost problem. The core benefit of using carbon fiber on the engine cover of an automobile is not to reduce weight, but to make it safer. Many manufacturers have changed the metal engine cover to a carbon fiber cover. The door partition used to use plastic, but now it has been changed to biofiber, which can ensure safety, degradability, and harmlessness. American car bodies are made of carbon fiber materials, and even the skeleton is made of carbon fiber. Instead of welding, they are bonded with high-strength adhesives and then fixed with rivets. There are no major technical issues in promoting the application of carbon fiber, and the final issue is the price. "
Zhu Bo, a professor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering of Shandong University, said in an interview with reporters: "In the development of carbon fiber, we focus on technology development and provide technical support for component companies such as leaf springs, covers, shells and bumpers. There are no problems with the process of developing carbon fiber, and there are already successful cases. The overall prospects for the promotion and application of carbon fiber are good, and user support is needed. Small batches will result in high costs. Improving the level of automation and increasing batches will solve the cost problem. The cost of raw materials is not a big problem. "
MAI Carbon, a world-renowned carbon fiber supplier, will make Germany the world's carbon fiber material research and development center in 2020, allowing metal parts on cars to be gradually replaced by carbon fiber materials.
Can carbon fiber parts replace metal parts in cars?
High-strength and lightweight materials that are "soft on the outside and strong on the inside"
In 1861, Edison used carbon filaments as filament materials and successfully glowed for 45 hours, bringing humans into the era of electric lights.
As carbon filaments in light bulbs were replaced by tungsten filaments, carbon filaments were thrown into the corner of history for nearly a century.
Until the 1950s, when the U.S. Air Force was looking for sintering materials, it learned that the melting point of carbon was as high as 3727℃ and had high temperature resistance and high strength characteristics, so it invited carbon filaments into the laboratory again and invented carbon fiber.
Carbon fiber is a new type of fiber material with high strength and high modulus fibers with a carbon content of more than 95%. It is a microcrystalline graphite material formed by stacking organic fibers such as flake graphite microcrystals along the fiber axis and undergoing carbonization and graphitization treatment.
Carbon fiber is "soft on the outside and hard on the inside". It is lighter than metal aluminum, but stronger than steel. It is insoluble and non-swelling in organic solvents, acids and alkalis, and has outstanding corrosion resistance. It has the inherent essential characteristics of carbon materials and the softness and processability of textile fibers. It is a new generation of reinforcing fibers.
Carbon fiber is fatigue-resistant, with specific heat and conductivity between non-metals and metals, a small thermal expansion coefficient, good electrical and thermal conductivity, and good electromagnetic shielding.
Resins, curing agents and other materials are mixed in a certain proportion, and then the carbon fiber fabric is impregnated. After a series of curing treatments, a carbon fiber composite material is formed. This material has advantages that traditional metal materials do not have.
The flexibility of the thickened carbon fiber cloth is very poor, almost the same as that of rigid materials. The principle is like sticking pieces of paper into a thick stack of paper, and the stack of paper will become strong. This is the qualitative change process of carbon fiber from being as soft as paper to being as strong as steel.
Pan Ding, a researcher and doctoral supervisor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering of Donghua University, said in an interview with a reporter from China Automotive News: "The tensile strength of carbon fiber is more than 4 times that of steel, and its specific gravity is less than a quarter of that of steel." Therefore, the traditional concept of "the stronger the weight, the heavier" has been completely overturned.
Low density makes carbon fiber widely used in large aircraft manufacturing. For example, Airbus A350 and A380, Boeing 787 all use carbon fiber composite materials to reduce fuel consumption. In addition, large wind turbine blades, racing cars and high-end bicycle bodies use a large amount of carbon fiber composite materials, which is an important reason for the increase in demand for carbon fiber composite materials.
Chen Guangzu, former secretary-general of the China Automobile Industry Advisory Committee, said in an interview with reporters: "Carbon fiber has good elasticity. It can bounce up when it sinks down; it can bounce back when it is flattened."
Two weaknesses of carbon fiber: high cost and difficult recycling
"There are no major technical problems in promoting the use of carbon fiber, and the final problem is the price. In addition, the recycling of carbon fiber after large-scale use is a major problem." Chen Guangzu hopes that industry insiders will systematically consider the issue of carbon fiber.
Carbon fiber is combined with epoxy resin to form a composite material. This composite material inherits a series of advantages of carbon fiber itself, such as specific strength, specific modulus, fatigue strength, energy absorption and shock resistance, and inherits the characteristics of flexible and diverse epoxy resin formula design. Compared with aluminum alloy structural parts, carbon fiber composite materials can reduce weight by 20% to 40%. Compared with steel metal parts, carbon fiber composite materials can reduce weight by 60% to 80%.
The application of carbon fiber composite materials can reduce the weight of the whole vehicle and have a profound impact on the automobile manufacturing process.
As the use of carbon fiber composite materials in automobiles increases, the four major processes of automobile manufacturing, stamping, welding, painting and assembly, will change. For example, stamping will be replaced by molding and forging processes; vehicle assembly will no longer require so much welding; some cars will basically no longer require painting; the whole vehicle will become dozens of modules, and the assembly rhythm will become very fast. In this way, the investment cost of the assembly line will decrease accordingly. Therefore, the large-scale application of new carbon fiber composite materials will lower the entry threshold of the automobile manufacturing industry.
Carbon fiber is combined with a plastic polymer resin to become a hard and lightweight compound material favored by the industry. However, during the production process, each piece of compound material is manually separated by workers, which is very wasteful.
If someone can separate carbon fiber from landfills, carbon fiber can be recycled. The carbon fiber manufacturing process consumes a lot of energy. Using recycled carbon fiber can also save a lot of energy.
The key is that carbon fiber cannot be simply melted and reshaped like aluminum. Carbon fiber compounds gain strength by arranging long and precise carbon fibers, and then are formed under high temperature and pressure through polymer bonding. Once formed, most hard polymers cannot be melted, burned or chemically dissolved to obtain valuable fibers.
Internationally, some companies recycle carbon fiber by burning polymers, while others recycle carbon fiber by chemical treatment. No matter which method is used, the load-bearing capacity of recycled carbon fiber is greatly reduced compared to new carbon fiber. Therefore, recycled carbon fiber is often used in the production of heavy-weight and light-strength products such as tennis rackets and golf clubs. It is still a good material, but it does not perform better than aluminum and low-cost compound materials.
The current status and prospects of carbon fiber applications in automobiles
Carbon fiber materials used in automobiles can effectively reduce their own weight, while significantly reducing fuel consumption, reducing pollution and improving braking performance.
High cost is an important constraint on the mass application of carbon fiber composite materials in automobiles. The high cost of carbon fiber composite materials is mainly reflected in two aspects: one is the high production cost of carbon fiber composite materials, and the other is the high price of raw materials for carbon fiber composite materials. At present, the price of carbon fiber per kilogram in the market is more than RMB 120, which is more than 10 times the price of glass fiber.
Lu Dong, director of the Components Committee of the Sino-German Intelligent Manufacturing Alliance, said in an interview with reporters: "Carbon fiber is widely used in airplanes. Carbon fiber can be used in automobiles to achieve lightweight, but it is not very meaningful. The main problem is whether it is cost-effective. Carbon fiber is very expensive when used in automobiles. The price of a carbon fiber beam alone is more than 30,000 yuan. Even high-end brands such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz rarely use carbon fiber. Because there are not many high-end cars in China, and there are few cars with a unit price of more than 150,000 yuan, the promotion and application of carbon fiber in domestic automobiles has very limited prospects."
"Our automotive carbon fiber products are in the trial stage. Many manufacturers are trying our carbon fiber beams, carbon fiber drive shafts, carbon fiber bumpers and carbon fiber doors. Carbon fiber products are rust-free, light in weight, low in energy consumption, fatigue-resistant, and safe. The biggest problem in promoting the application of carbon fiber products in the automotive industry is that the price is very high. Low- and medium-end cars cannot afford carbon fiber products. High-end cars use a small amount of carbon fiber products.
"Without carbon fiber, the automotive industry cannot develop." Pan Ding made a shocking statement.
Chen Guangzu said: "The development of lightweight automobiles first experienced the thinning of body steel plates. After that, aluminum alloy became fashionable, and magnesium alloy, which is lighter than aluminum alloy, was used, and finally carbon fiber was used. Carbon fiber can definitely be promoted and applied in automobiles. Biofiber is environmentally friendly, recyclable, and has broad application prospects. There must be a timetable and steps. "
Pan Ding then elaborated: "Carbon fiber has been used quite a lot in automobiles and airplanes. Although carbon fiber is a little more expensive, carbon fiber beams and carbon fiber bumpers have been used very well. BMW cars are the best cars using carbon fiber and are a successful example of using carbon fiber in cars. It is light, fuel-efficient, and has low pollution. Carbon fiber has broad application prospects in automobiles."
Further talking about the benefits of using carbon fiber in automobiles, Chen Guangzu pointed out: "Aluminum alloy on airplanes has been changed to carbon fiber. The automobile industry loves new materials. The development of new automobiles starts with the development of new materials. The promotion and application of carbon fiber is the development direction of the automobile industry. Now there is a cost problem. The core benefit of using carbon fiber on the engine cover of an automobile is not to reduce weight, but to make it safer. Many manufacturers have changed the metal engine cover to a carbon fiber cover. The door partition used to use plastic, but now it has been changed to biofiber, which can ensure safety, degradability, and harmlessness. American car bodies are made of carbon fiber materials, and even the skeleton is made of carbon fiber. Instead of welding, they are bonded with high-strength adhesives and then fixed with rivets. There are no major technical issues in promoting the application of carbon fiber, and the final issue is the price. "
Zhu Bo, a professor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering of Shandong University, said in an interview with reporters: "In the development of carbon fiber, we focus on technology development and provide technical support for component companies such as leaf springs, covers, shells and bumpers. There are no problems with the process of developing carbon fiber, and there are already successful cases. The overall prospects for the promotion and application of carbon fiber are good, and user support is needed. Small batches will result in high costs. Improving the level of automation and increasing batches will solve the cost problem. The cost of raw materials is not a big problem. "