The pressure for increased fuel economy arid low C02 emissions for automotive vehicles continues.In order to satisfy requirements,lighter vehicles will need to be manufactured making it necessary to replace metals in structural components with lightweight materials such as carbon fiber composites.The challenge associated with implementation of carbon fiber composites is to make them cost effective for high volume production because historically this class of materials was designed for low volume production scenarios.In order to apply carbon fiber prepreg derivatives to high volume automotive applications,the material must be designed so it can be robotically handled,and reduce expensive material usage inefficiencies while utilizing existing processing equipment.This work presents an innovative mechanical method to incorporate uncured carbon fiber reinforced polymer"in-process"scrap to completely utilize the waste material in three-dimensional reinforcing rib features of a structural automotive application,and demonstrates an efficient material use method to provide cost savings with aligned carbon fiber prepreg designs.This paper compares the mechanical properties of the discontinuous fiber reinforced composites prepared using virgin carbon fibers and reutilized carbon fiber prepreg scrap.
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