COURSE CODE:

STSB2152 / COMPOSITE MATERIALS

SEMESTER / SESSION :

SEMESTER 1 2019/2020

TITLE OF ASSIGNMENT :

IMPROVISED CAR BUMPER WITH CARBON FIBER REINFORCED PLASTIC

PREPARED FOR :

DR. SITI AISYAH BINTI SHAMSUDIN

PREPARED BY :

SITI AMINAH BINTI GHAZALI (A172292)

LEE CHEW TING (A170772)

NUR NARTASHA BINTI ILHM (A170049)

UBAIDILLAH AHMAD (A167515)

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In recent years, the automotive industry has advanced a great deal and composite materials
have played a large role in this revolution. Various composite materials have been
experimented in most parts of cars. Manufacturers fill polymers with particles in a bid to
improve the toughness and stiffness of the materials, as a means of enhancing their barrier
properties as well as enhancing their resistance to fire ignition, or simply to reduce costs. The
addition of particulate fillers can lead to drawbacks such as brittle or opaque composites.
Automobile bumper subsystem is a frontal and rear structures of the vehicle that has
the purpose of energy absorption during low velocity impact. The bumper beam is the main
structure for absorbing the energy of collisions. Automotive bumper beam is one of the key
system in car. Bumpers beam design to prevent or reduce physical damage to front or rear end
of the Motor vehicle in collision conditions they protect the hood, trunk, grill, fuel, exhaust
and cooling system as well as safety related equipment such as the parking light, head lamp
and tail light etc. A good design of the car bumper must provide safety for passengers and
should have low weight.
Carbon fibre reinforced plastic is an extremely strong and light fibre-reinforced plastic
which contains carbon fibres. CFRPs can be used wherever high strength-to weight ratio and
rigidity are required, such as aerospace, automotive, civil engineering, sports goods and an
increasing number of other consumer and technical applications. The binding polymer is often
a thermoset resin such as epoxy, but other thermoset or thermoplastic polymers, such as
polyester, vinyl ester or nylon, are sometimes used.
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature reviews related to impact are studied by many researchers. It was absorbed that major
injury due to impact velocity effects to the car bumper.

Arun Basil Jacob, Arun Kumar O.N, said that they emphasized that improving crashworthiness
of an automobile bumper. This review proposes a new bumper model which has more
crashworthiness than the existing bumper. They aim at improving crashworthiness of an
automobile bumper. They selected TOYOTA CAMRY MODEL released in 2012. The bumper
of the existing model had steel bumper. Two new designs were proposed in this review. Model
containing Honeycomb inside the existing bumper being the first one and foam incorporated
design as the second. The newly designed models namely foam, and the honeycomb
incorporated bumpers show better impact absorption capacity. The absorption capacity of the
Honeycomb model is 11.26% and of foam model capacity is 6%. Foam is used for
crashworthiness in the automobile industry for two main reasons. To fracture and break,
absorbing the crash energy and to reinforce sheet metal and an overall light structure.

Figure 1: sectional view of honeycomb structure

Figure 2: Bumper and foam model

 The other review that has been made is the material used is long fibre reinforced
thermoplastics. It is then compared to conventional material. The purpose of this project is to
design a bumper which is to improve crashworthiness of bumper. From the above analysis it is
concluded that long fibre reinforced thermoplastic material based is good. Then it is compared
with other materials and natural fibres have good energy absorption capacity based on research
done by Lingam Jayashree, D Venkataramaniah, G Naveen Kumar.

Figure 3: Long fibre reinforced thermoplastics

A research done by Pradeep Kumar Uddandapu states that the density of ABS plastic and PEI
is less than that of steel therefore the overall weight of car bumper is reduced. The material
used is ABS plastic and PEI. The aim of this study is to analyse and to study the structure and
material. In this research analysis is done for speed according to regulations and by changing
speed in this analysis. The density of ABS plastic and PEI is less than that of steel therefore
the overall weight of car bumper is reduced. In this conclusion, comparing the results of ABS
plastic and PEI with steel, the stress values are less for ABS plastic and for the other two
materials, therefore ABS plastic is better for utilization comparing PEI.

Figure 4: Meshing of ABS plastic and PEI material

3.0 BACKGROUND

Automobile bumper is a structural component of an automotive vehicle, which contributes to

vehicle crashworthiness or occupant protection during front or rear collisions. The bumper
systems also protect the hood, trunk, fuel, exhaust and cooling system as well as safety related
equipment. A bumper is a shield normally made of aluminium, steel rubber, composite or
plastic that is mounted on the front and rear of an automobile vehicle. When a low speed
collision takes place, the bumper system absorbs the shock or energy to prevent or reduce
damage to the vehicle. In some bumpers energy absorbers or brackets are used and others are
made with foam cushioning material.

Automobile bumpers are not usually designed to be structural components that would
significantly contribute to vehicle crashworthiness or occupant protection during front or rear
collisions at high speed. The bumper should be designed as safety feature since it is intended
to reduce the magnitude of deceleration during impact. The bumper systems are only designed
to protect the hood, trunk, frame, fuel, exhaust and cooling system as well as safety related
equipment, such as parking lights, headlamps and taillight at low speed collisions.

Bumper systems design has been changing drastically over the last 20 to 30 years. High
demanding government safety regulations and different styling concepts have resulted in new
designs. For example, reinforcing beams covered by plastic fascia were introduced in the early
1970's. Styling fashion has changed appearance values from almost 100% chrome-plated face
bars to predominately fascia system that are colour coordinated with the body. The growths of
light trucks, minivans and sport utility vehicles have created two classes of bumper systems in
the eyes of the engineering world: one for passenger cars and another for the broad grouping
of light trucks. Safety concerns have resulted in the bumper beam becoming a part of the
structural load path.
 There are several factors to be considered when selecting a bumper system. The most
important consideration is the ability of the bumper system to absorb enough energy to meet
the original equipment manufacturers (OEM's) internal bumper standard. Another requirement
is to stay intact at high-speed impacts. Weight, manufacturing process ability and cost are also
the factors that have to be considered during the design phase. Both initial bumper cost and
repair cost are important. The formability of materials is important for high-sweep bumper
systems. Another factor considered at the material selection is recyclability of materials, which
is an advantage for steel, but the evolution of CO2 during recycling or re-melting of steel has
to be taken into consideration.

3.1 PROBLEM STATEMENT

Nowadays accidents are frequent and cause damage to a vehicle’s body and became
threat to human life. The current issue of the automobile industries is in reduction
of weight and safety. And difficult in mass production which includes high cost and
in maintaining its quality. The targets in designing car bumper is to overcome from
the disadvantage of weight and the quality of the component without sacrificing it
performance. The result is compared, and the best performance material based on
the amount of energy absorbed will be chosen and suggested as a new material for
car bumper.
4.0 FABRICATION OF BUMPER

In Hand lay-up, liquid resin is applied to the mould and then fibre glass is placed on the top. A
roller is used to impregnate the fibre with resin. Another resin and reinforcement layer are
applied until a suitable thickness builds up. It is very flexible process that allows the user to
optimize the part by placing different types of fabric and mat materials. Because the
reinforcement is placed manually, it is also called the hand lay-up process. Though this process
requires little capital, it is labour intensive.

In the hand lay-up process the thickness of the composite part is built up by applying a serious
of fibre glass layers and liquid resin layers. A roller is used to squeeze out the excess resign
and create uniform distribution of the resign throughout the surfaces. By the squeezing action
of the roller, homogeneous fibre wetting is obtained, the part is then cured at room temperature
for about one week and once solidified it is removed from mould.
5.0 CHARACTERIZATION
5.1 Material properties
There are two main reasons why materials selection is required: firstly, to design an
existing product for better performance, lower cost, increasing reliability and
reduced weight and secondly, to select a material for a new product. Materials
selection is a main product design consideration because product’s overall
performance is mainly affected and determined by materials selection process.

5.2 Analysis of bumper

From above the results it was analysed that which composite material is best to replace the
metallic/ conventional bumpers it was found that both the composite materials are safe to
replace with heavy metallic bumpers. Carbon Fibre epoxy performed very well in the analysis,
but this composite material is very costly as compare to other metal used in auto vehicle chassis
frame which incur some extra cost on the consumer when cost will not be the factor. The results
of the analysis give a clear indication that the maximum stress induced is in steel and minimum
stress induced is in composite material. And the cost of the bumper beams can be reduced by
more than 50%.
6.0 CONCLUSION

When designing the bumper system, the deformation of the bumper beam must be less than a
value in order to protect the other components from damage. And the maximum stress cannot
exceed the yield stress. What is more, under the premise of satisfying the impact performance,
the weight of the bumper beam should be minimized as much as possible.

Under the condition of low velocity impact, most of the energy is absorbed by the bumper
system. After impact simulations considering the parameters which have influence on the
impact performance, through the analysis of lightweight materials, the carbon fibre composite
is selected as the material of the bumper beam instead of steel in order to achieve the
lightweight design. Comparing with using the steel bumper beam, less bumper beam
deformation, impact force between impactor and fascia, and acceleration of impactor can be
gained by carbon fibre composite bumper beam. The steel can be replaced by the carbon fibre
composite since it has great advantages over steel in term of lightweight. These advantages are
also conductive to the improvement of fuel efficiency and decrease of emission of harmful
pollutants.
7.0 REFERENCES

1. Arun Basil Jacob, Arun Kumar O. N, emphasized that improving crashworthiness of

an automobile bumper. Dept. Of Mechanical Engineering, SNGCE, Kolenchery,
Kerala.
2. Lingam Ramyashree, D Venkataramaniah, G Naveen Kumar discussed about the
impact analysis of frontal car bumper using long fiber reinforced thermoplastics. Balaji
Institute of Engineering and Science, Warangal, Telangana, India. Vol.5 no.3 june
2015.
3. Mahesh Kumar v. Dange, Dr. Rajesh B. Buktal, Dr. Nilesh R. Raykai has proposed
about the design and analysis of an automotive front bumper. Dept. Of Mechanical
Engineering, Sardar Patel College of Engineering/Mumbai University, India Apr.2015.
4. Davoodi, M. M., Sapuan, S. M., Ahmad, D., Aidy, A., Khalina, A., & Jonoobi, M.
(2011). Concept selection of car bumper beam with developed hybrid bio-composite
material. Materials & Design, 32(10), 4857–4865.
5. Stephen Robert Reid GZ. Impact behaviour of fibre-reinforced composite materials and
structures. England: Woodhead Publishing; 2000.

6. Wang, T., & Li, Y. (2015). Design and analysis of automotive carbon fiber composite
bumper beam based on finite element analysis. Advances in Mechanical Engineering,
7(6)