In present scenario, light weighting becomes a main issue for energy efficiency in automotive industry. The emission of gases and fuel efficiency of vehicles are two important issues. The best way to improve the fuel efficiency is to decrease the weight of vehicle parts. Research and development played an important role in lightweight materials for decreasing cost, increasing ability to be recycled, enabling their integration into vehicles, and maximizing their fuel economy efficacy. There arises a need for developing a novel generation of materials that will combine both weight reduction and safety issues. The application of carbon fibre reinforced plastic material offers the best lightweight potential to realize lightweight concepts. Carbon fibre reinforced plastic has outstanding specific stiffness, specific strength, and fatigue properties compared to commonly used metals. In automotive industry, the advantages of carbon fibre reinforced plastic are reduction in weight, part integration and reduction, crashworthiness, durability, toughness, and aesthetic appealing. Carbon fibre reinforced plastic is a composite material that has been used extensively in various applications such as aerospace industry, sports equipment, oil and gas industry, and automotive industry. Keeping in view the aforementioned advantages of carbon fibre reinforced plastic, the authors have presented a brief review on carbon fibre for automotive industrial applications.

No abstract

In order to curb the fuel consumption and corresponding CO2 emission, defence, automobile, and aerospace industries are leaning towards the use of light weight‐high stiffness engineered materials like fiber reinforced polymer composites (FRPCs). One of the major advantages of FRPCs is that various properties (stiffness, tensile strength, flexural strength, etc.) can be tailored according to requirements of the application. Architecture of the reinforcement used in FRPCs has been proved to affect these properties substantially. Composite materials have seen a lot of advancement in the field of reinforcement architectures starting from the plain‐woven fabrics to advanced 3D braided/woven preforms. The architecture of reinforcement must be wisely selected to design the required properties of developed composites and to reduce the overall cost without compromising the performance. The problem addressed in the present study is the selection of reinforcement architecture while developing a composite material. 2D Plain woven reinforcements are better than other reinforcements in terms of in‐plane properties but their out‐of‐plane properties are very poor. Therefore, advanced architectures like 3D woven fabrics, 5D Braided preforms, knitted preforms, and 3D needle punched fibers are being used in various high performance applications. The present article is an attempt to analyse the effect of various available architectures of reinforcement on the macroscopic mechanical properties of FRPC laminates and to propose a systematic way to select a reinforcement.

Polymer composite materials are consistently being used in various industrial and domestic applications due to their lightweight, high-specific strength, and low cost. In order to enhance various performance of polymer composites, a suitable nanofiller can be used. Polymer composites, which take advantage of natural fibers and nanofillers, synergistically, contribute to improved properties and environmental condition by making them suitable for various applications (aerospace, automobile industries, electronics, biomedical, etc.). The present study gives an insight of nanofiller-based polymer composite and the challenges associated with processing methods. The use of nanofillers in polymer composites to enhance their mechanical properties (tensile, flexural, impact, and tribological) and most importantly the self-healing property due to which they are finding numerous applications. This study also includes the problems associated with excessive use of nanomaterial leading to various environmental and health hazards. The problems and their remedies associated with nano-toxicity have also been addressed.

No abstract

Noise pollution caused by urbanization and industrial development must be effectively controlled to provide a pleasant living atmosphere. Different synthetic fiber materials have good acoustic performance, yet synthetic fiber materials have a high cost and have adverse effect on the environment. Natural fibers are a good alternative to synthetic fibers in terms of acoustic properties and they are also less expensive and have less environmental impact. Several factors affects the acoustic behavior of natural fiber reinforced polymer composites (NFRPCs). The present article focuses on the effect of different processing methods, reinforcement architecture, fiber diameter, laminate thickness and density on the acoustic performance of NFRPCs. Reinforcement architecture has been proved to be the best option in order to tailor the various acoustic properties of the composite laminates without even changing other physical properties. The challenges, future scope and potential applications of natural fibers in acoustic applications (home theaters, offices, cinema halls, automobiles, etc.) have also been discussed.

No abstract

No abstract