December 01, 2017 Source: New Materials Online

       The material competition involving the “new energy, intelligent, and lightweight” of the automotive industry in the future is continuing to ferment, and the “opposition” of vehicle manufacturers, materials companies, and scientific research institutions is also becoming more and more intense.

       The rule of the automotive materials industry is that when a material monopoly has been formed, it is difficult for the latecomers to completely subvert, only waiting for the next wave of industrial innovation. Nowadays, with the acceleration of the era of new energy vehicles, a brand new, imaginative space for automotive materials is opening. Automotive non-metallic materials such as carbon fiber composites are ushered in an unprecedented historical golden period.

"In order to promote the green development of the automotive industry, the state has introduced a series of automobile industry development policies, especially the development of fuel consumption and new energy of passenger car enterprises will inevitably change the product structure of major automobile companies. The pressure on traditional automobile fuel consumption is pressing harder. The application of non-metallic materials has great advantages, which can alleviate the pressure of automobile enterprises in these two aspects, and provide more opportunities for the non-metal industry, and will promote the industry to strengthen, cooperate, and innovate. Jointly create a new situation of rapid transformation and upgrading of the automobile industry and comprehensive revitalization of independent brands.” Zheng Hong, Director of the Materials and Lightweight Institute of New Energy Development Institute of China First Automobile Co., Ltd., recently held the China Automotive Engineering Society Automotive Non-Metallic Materials Branch Said at the seventh annual meeting.

The China Automotive Engineering Society previously issued the "Technology Roadmap for Energy Saving and New Energy Vehicles", stipulating that in the third phase from 2026 to 2030, the vehicle will be reduced by 35% compared with 2015, focusing on the development of magnesium alloy and carbon fiber composite materials technology. Carbon fiber composites are used in a wide range of applications, such as carbon fiber components, and carbon fiber usage accounts for 5% of the vehicle weight.

Carbon fiber has undoubtedly become a key point for the upgrading of vehicle manufacturers, especially new energy vehicles.

Hand carbon fiber automotive application "external heat inside and cold"

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the emission regulations of various countries in the world have become increasingly strict. How to reduce fuel consumption and reduce emissions under the premise of ensuring safety and power is an urgent problem that the automobile industry urgently needs to solve. Replacing traditional materials such as metals with various lightweight materials, making cars lightweight is an important way to achieve energy saving and emission reduction. Carbon fiber composite materials are increasingly valued by the automotive industry due to their advantages of light weight, high strength, high stiffness, good vibration resistance, fatigue resistance, corrosion resistance, etc., and are increasingly used in automobiles.

“Lightweight and materials include traditional steel materials, light alloy materials and non-metal materials, replacing traditional materials with new materials, and achieving lightweight design of components and systems.” Jin Min, New Technology Research Institute of BAIC Group It shows that carbon fiber composites have obvious advantages in specific strength and specific grinding capacity, mechanical properties are outstanding, design freedom is relatively high, and it is easier to integrate design. There are more and more applications in high-end cars and new energy vehicles. It can be seen that carbon fiber composite materials have become an important means of lightweight design of automobiles.

Chart: Application examples of carbon fiber in automobiles

Source: Seri Research

However, through the investigation of the new material online®, the application of carbon fiber composite materials in the automotive field still shows the situation of “external heat and internal cooling”. The development and application of multinational auto companies in the field of carbon fiber vehicles has been far ahead.

The history of carbon fiber used in automotive materials dates back to 1953, and the world's first fiber reinforced composite vehicle, GM Corvette, was successfully manufactured.

In 1992, General Motors exhibited an ultra-light concept car made of carbon fiber composite material. The body quality was 191.0 kg, the overall vehicle quality was reduced by 68%, and the fuel economy was 40%. In 1993, Lamborghini launched the Murciélago replacement, which features a full-carbon composite single-shell body with a mass of only 145.5 kg.

At present, the body structure parts made of carbon fiber composite materials have been widely used in the Z-9 and Z-22 series developed by German BMW. Germany Volkswagen's "2L car" CC1 research project, carbon fiber composite materials used in the body of up to 45%. The hood of the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 commemorative sedan made of carbon fiber composites from General Motors is only 9.3 kg. Ford and Porsche hoods are also made of carbon fiber composite material, which achieves extremely high weight reduction without sacrificing safety.

The application of domestic car companies in the field of carbon fiber is still in the stage of initial research and development and small-scale application.

“Everyone in the industry is optimistic about the application of carbon fiber in automobiles, but because of the limitations of some technologies, a higher cost, and can not meet the requirements of the rapid development of the automotive industry.” Technical Director of Jiangsu Aosheng Composite Materials Technology Co., Ltd. Yan Bing told New Materials Online®.

Carbon fiber investment

Although carbon fiber composites are currently severely constrained by large-scale applications in the automotive field due to the high cost, mass production process and lack of equipment. However, carbon fiber composite materials are not only lightweight for automobiles, but also greatly improved in terms of safety and passenger comfort. Therefore, they are increasingly valued by the automotive industry, and their future prospects are unquestionable.

 Domestic riders, especially new energy auto companies and carbon fiber composites companies are accelerating their deployment in the field of automotive carbon fiber materials.

On November 28th, “Kangde Carbon Valley Technology Co., Ltd. with an annual output of 66,000 tons of high-performance carbon fiber project” jointly invested by Kangde Group, Kangdexin Group and Rongcheng Municipal People's Government of Shandong Province started construction in Shandong Rongcheng Development Zone. . According to the New Materials Online®, the total investment of the project is 50 billion yuan, covering an area of 6,660 acres, which will be constructed in five phases. After the completion of production, the annual output of high-performance carbon fiber is 66,000 tons, high-performance carbon fiber raw silk is 168,000 tons, and high-performance carbon fiber composite material is 30,000 tons. The annual sales revenue is expected to reach 100 billion yuan.

Since 2013, the new layout of Kangde and Kangde has created the world's only carbon fiber lightweight ecological platform, achieving the entire industrial chain of carbon fiber from raw silk to carbon filament to carbon fiber composite material research and development, design and production. Zhonganxin started production in August 2016, with an annual output of 5,100 tons of raw silk and 1,700 tons of carbon wire. It is the largest single-fiber, high-performance carbon fiber production line in China.

In addition, the Kangde Group has established the Kangde Composites Industry 4.0 intelligent carbon fiber body and component manufacturing plant in Langfang, which will produce 50,000 new energy vehicles carbon fiber bodies and 1.5 million carbon fiber parts per year. The Kangdexin Group also invested 30 million euros. Based on the original laboratory-level R&D center of the Munich University of Technology, the industrial-grade Kangde New European Composites R&D Center with a full set of international first-class equipment and an area of 3,000 square meters was built. Quantify national innovation centers. In addition, Kangdexin has established a joint venture with the German company Redding, which has experience in the design of large-scale production of carbon fiber components, to develop the Kangdexin-Retin Europe Automotive Design Center with the most advanced concepts and technologies to develop a lightweight road.

“The carbon fiber lightweight ecological platform has brought strong competitiveness. At present, it has designed new energy electric vehicles and lightweight vehicles for 53 Chinese automakers. It will be mass-produced in the future.” Zhong Yu, Chairman of Kangde and Kangde New Group In an interview with the media, he said.

On September 29, Zhongfu Shenying Carbon Fiber Co., Ltd. held the launching ceremony of the “1000-ton SYT55 (T800) carbon fiber new line project” in Lianyungang, Jiangsu. This line is the 1000-ton T800 carbon fiber production line with the most advanced domestic technology, the highest single-line production efficiency, the highest degree of automation, the best green environmental protection index and the lowest investment cost.

Window opportunity is now available

“The development trend of automotive lightweighting at home and abroad is relatively consistent. The most important thing is material replacement, such as optimization of steel sheet structure, application of aluminum alloy and magnesium alloy, replacement of plastic-substituted steel and fiber-reinforced composite material.” Beijing Automotive Research Zhong Guangliang, an engineer of the General Hospital Co., Ltd., said that it is more optimistic about composite materials, including resin composite materials such as glass fiber or carbon fiber composite materials.

It is understood that domestic automakers represented by Chery, Qoros and BAIC Group have begun to use carbon fiber composite materials on their new energy electric vehicles. In the first half of this year, BAIC Group and Kangde Composite Materials signed the first mass production orders for carbon fiber auto parts in China, which became the beginning of China's carbon fiber for mass production of automobiles.

“In terms of vehicle lightweighting, the company has been tracking the opportunity to apply carbon fiber in the automotive sector, and has cooperated with some automakers and some research institutes to try out the development of automotive components using carbon fiber composites.” Guangwei Composite (300699.SZ) Dong Ying Wang Yingchao said when receiving institutional investors.

Haiyuan Machinery (002529.SZ) recently said on the investor interaction platform that the company's cooperation with Geely is progressing smoothly. In addition, the company is currently negotiating cooperation with a number of car companies to develop carbon fiber parts and components.

Previously, China Hengrui Co., Ltd., as the first major technical partner of the K50 composite material for pure electric sports car with large-scale use of new carbon fiber composite materials and the main carbon fiber component manufacturing supplier, has completed the delivery of the first batch of samples. in.

On July 10, 2017, Kangde Group and BAIC Group signed an agreement with Changzhou High-tech Zone Management Committee in Beijing. The three parties will jointly fund the construction of “Industrial 4.0 Intelligent Carbon Fiber Car Body and Parts in Changzhou National High-tech Industrial Development Zone”. The factory is engaged in the research and development, production and sales of carbon fiber new energy vehicle body parts.

The project plans a total investment of 12 billion yuan, completed in three phases, with an annual production capacity of 6 million pieces, to meet the growing demand for carbon fiber components in the future of car enterprises, and to promote the future development of China's automotive carbon fiber lightweight.

According to the analysis of brokerages, the global demand for carbon fiber composites is expected to reach 200,000 tons in 2022. In 2020, the market scale of automobiles can reach about 16.9 billion yuan.

       "Application in the automobile, domestic carbon fiber enterprises have two main problems to be solved. One is the cost. At present, the main gap between domestic and foreign is in the cost, and the cost should be reduced to the extent that the automobile can accept. Another problem is the manufacturing process. “Shenzhen Hengshen Technical Consultant Shen Zhen told New Materials Online®.