Fiber reinforced structural composites will play a key rote in the development of the next generation of transportation vehicles (passenger cars, vans, light trucks and heavy trucks) due to their high strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight ratio compared to metals. An integrated assessment of the durability, reliability, and affordability of these materials is critical to facilitate the inclusion of these materials into new designs. The result of this assessment should provide information to find the balance between the three performance measures. This paper describes a method to develop this assessment in the fabrication of sheet molding compound (SMC) parts, and discusses the concept of Preform Insert Assembly (PIA) for improved affordability in the manufacturing of composite parts. Experimental results, as well as predictions made by means of physics-based models in regards of the material properties and processing parameters can be closely approximated by means of artificial neural networks. These empirical expressions make it more convenient to generate a large amount of predictions on the PMs of interest with the objective to generate multiple predicted combinations. These combinations can then be analyzed with DEA.
The balance between durability, reliability, and affordability in structural composites manufacturing: preliminary results
2003
8 Seiten, 16 Bilder, 3 Tabellen, 10 Quellen
Conference paper
English
Automotive engineering | 2003
|British Library Conference Proceedings | 2003
|British Library Conference Proceedings | 2003
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