A review of carbon fiber materials in automotive industry

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.