Flexural Performance of Steel–FRP Composites for Automotive Applications

Abstract

The design of hybrid structure offers an attractive solution to enhance strength and structural stiffness as well as to achieve lightweight effect and cost reduction. The applications of steel–FRP (fiber-reinforced polymer) composites in transportation and civil engineering have been comprehensively reviewed. In order to apply hybrid structures to car body parts such as B-pillar, flexural performance of steel–FRP composites is investigated by means of three-point bending test in this study. An analytical model is deduced to calculate the initial stiffness, the bending load and the energy absorption of steel–FRP composites. Steel–CFRP (carbon fiber-reinforced polymer) and steel–AFRP (aramid fiber-reinforced polymer) composites are experimentally studied and discussed. The results demonstrate that the steel–FRP composites exhibit significantly higher load-carrying capabilities and initial stiffnesses along with larger energy absorptions in the bending process compared to the single steel sheet.

Inverse Fiber Reinforced Polymer/Metal-Hybrid Laminates for Structural Lightweight Applications

“…Each column in the charts has an average value and scatter of the obtained results. In general, the FRP/metal-hybrid laminates indicate a high stiffness and flexural resistance [19]. In comparison with pure carbon fiber reinforced polymers the main advantage is the about 50% increase in mechanical properties in perpendicular direction to the fiber orientation, as regarded at the evaluation of the Interlaminar Shear Strength (ILSS) [20].…”

Analytical modeling for the axial compression performance of steel-fiber-reinforced polymer hybrid laminates

“…without the reinforcement of FRP, equation (32) can be reduced to the analytical model of the maximum compressive load of the single steel sheet from Ref., 45 i.e. equation (33).…”

“…The bending collapse behavior of thinwalled structures was analytically studied by Kecman 32 and Haedir et al 23 As exemplarily illustrated in Figure 8, the bending process of a thin-walled structure can be considered as a combination of flexural deformation of the top and bottom thin sheets, and compressive deformation of the two side walls. The flexural performances of steel-FRP hybrid laminates have been analytically and experimentally investigated by Lin et al 33 However, the study on the behavior of steel-FRP hybrid laminates subject to compression is still limited, and only the composites with fiber along loading direction were discussed. 34 Therefore, the compression performances of steel-FRP hybrid laminates are crucial to systematically understand the deformation behavior and strengthening mechanism of steel-FRP hybrid structures to resist bending collapse, and the analytical approach of compressive behavior of steel-FRP hybrid laminates plays an essential role in the application of FRP reinforcement on automotive bodies.…”

Experimental investigation of Al5052‐H32/PETG hybrid clinched joints

“…Commonly used lightweight materials mainly include high-strength steel, 15,32 aluminum alloy, 12,13,23 polymers, [42][43][44] and various composite materials. 12,33,45 In the past, many studies have focused on joining metallic materials (such as titanium alloy and aluminum alloy) and composite materials (such as CFRP and GFRP). Galinska et al 6 and Zhang et al 46 summarized the mechanical techniques used to join metals to fiber-reinforced composites, respectively.…”