Development of a Carbon Fiber Reinforced Composite Chassis Longitudinal Arm

This paper developed a carbon fiber reinforced composite (CFRP) longitudinal arm of automobile chassis for light-weighting. Based on the classical laminated plate theory and finite element method (FEM), an optimization method was developed to obtain an optimum laminate layup configuration for the CFRP longitudinal arm. The Tsai-Wu failure criterion was used for failure prediction. The designed CFRP longitudinal arm was manufactured using hot pressure molding process. Experiments were performed to test mechanical properties of the CFRP longitudinal arm. Research results demonstrate that the potential of using CFRP longitudinal arm to replace metal arm is huge. The research work presented provides a useful reference for application of advanced composites on light-weight design of main load-bearing structures for new energy car chassis.