CARBIO Project Develops Carbon/Flax Hybrid Automotive Roof
3rd November 2015
The CARBIO project has developed a carbon/flax hybrid automotive roof using Composite Evolution’s Biotex Flax material.
The project, which involves Jaguar Land Rover, is developing novel carbon/flax hybrid composites to produce automotive structures with reduced weight, cost, environmental impact and improved noise, vibration and harshness (NVH).
By creating a hybrid structure using flax-bioepoxy to replace some of the carbon, enhanced properties such as lower weight, cost, NVH and environmental impact can be gained.
A 50/50 carbon/flax hybrid biocomposite, made from Biotex Flax supplied by Composites Evolution and prepregged by SHD Composite Materials, has significantly contributed to achieving the objectives of the project. With equal bending stiffness to carbon fibre, the hybrid biocomposite has:
- 15% lower cost
- 7% lower weight
- 58% higher vibration damping
The prototype roof, designed by Delta Motorsport and manufactured by KS Composites, will be on display at the Advanced Engineering show, 4-5 November 2015, Hall 5, NEC, Birmingham, UK, in the product display area. Both Composites Evolution (stand E125) and SHD (stand C194) will be exhibiting at show.
The CARBIO project is part-funded by Innovate UK. The partners are Composites Evolution, SHD Composite Materials, KS Composites, Delta Motorsport, Jaguar Land Rover and Cranfield University.