JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #95 - Special JEC Europe - March 2015 - 52

awards

official partner

Jury prize

Carbon frame design for an automotive body
At the core of the pioneering frame around
which the Intrado concept car is based are
carbon-fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP)
tubes which are as flexible as rope. By
aligning and curing them with a mixture of
carbon fibre-reinforced plastics, the resulting
structure becomes rigid and strong.
The frame is formed from precisely-shaped
continuous loops made from the newly-formed material. These serve as self-contained
modular frames for the roof, hood and even
the entire aperture for the door on either
side of the car - which are then bonded to
each other along their lengths at ambient
temperature. The seals of the opening panels
shut directly against these frames, further
reducing weight and showcasing the carbon
fibre whenever the doors, hood or trunk are
opened.
By bonding the carbon loops along their
lengths, rather than at cross-sections, the
Intrado's frame is stronger and suffers from
less torsional stresses, meaning the agility

and precision of the engineering remains
constant. Additionally, the "open" corners
allow the designers greater flexibility.
Running along the length of the Intrado is a
"floating" centre console beam. This beam
provides the Intrado with its unique strength
in addition to connecting the passenger
compartment and powertrain with the carbon frame. It serves as a mounting point for
essential controls and protective padding,
and also supports the frame's integration
with the fuel cell powertrain and the passenger compartment. The unique qualities of
the Intrado make it more repairable than
typical carbon fibre structures as damaged
sections, or parts of sections, can be repaired
without using expensive tooling or ovens.
The strength and rigidity of this central
structure also allows body panels to be
constructed from any material - giving designers greater flexibility and further aiding
reparability. The super-lightweight structure
of the Intrado is formed from a mixture

of advanced materials, and demonstrates
Hyundai's and its collaborators' desire to
produce lighter, stronger cars that are even
better to drive and simpler to repair.
By building the Intrado with advanced
carbon fibre-reinforced composites, a 50%
saving in the overall weight is achieved
compared to similar steel structures.

JEC Composites Magazine
Special Prize

Innovative new aircraft

The VX-1 KittyHawk is an innovative new
aircraft with looks and performance that will
remake the light aircraft landscape, manned
or unmanned. The aircraft has more usable
internal volume and payload capacity and
improved aerodynamic efficiency. A stellar
advantage of the increase in internal volume
is the ability to incorporate existing-technology compressed natural gas (CNG) as a fuel
source, which will reduce the operational fuel
cost by a factor of three. Equally important is
the structural efficiency. The basic airframe
consists of just six components, and there are
no highly stressed parts in the design.
The use of advanced composite materials
resulted in a new design with a greater usable
internal volume, a higher payload capability,
improved structural efficiency, better durability and improved manufacturability.
Thanks to the use of Chomarat's new thinply non-crimp fabric (NCF) - C-PLY™ - the
KittyHawk™ has a unique shape with no

Winner: Hyundai Motor Company
(Republic of Korea)
Partner: Lotte Chemical (Republic of
Korea), Hyosung Corporation (Republic
of Korea), Axon Automotive (UK)

wings. Abandoning the traditional quasi-isotropic lay-ups or "black aluminium", C-PLY™
enables laminate designers to vary the fibre
angles between plies and evenly spread
fibres and, therefore, to increase toughness
and get lighter weight products. The unique
shape of the KittyHawk™ combined with
lighter weight offers numerous advantages
over traditional designs, such as a greater
usable internal volume and higher payload
capability. The maximized volume also
allows the KittyHawk™ to lead the way in
adopting CNG as an aviation fuel. Existingtechnology CNG tanks fit inside the aircraft
with no aerodynamic compromise. At less
than 1/3 the cost of avgas, the KittyHawk™
has unparalleled operational economy with
emissions that are 40% cleaner.
At the production level, the specific shape of
the KittyHawk™ made possible by advanced
composites entitles parts reduction. It means
time savings by eliminating assembly steps,

52 jec composites magazine / No95 March 2015

Winner: VX Aerospace (USA)
Partners: Chomarat (USA), Stanford
University (USA), Northern Carolina
State University (USA), University of
South Carolina (USA)

and therefore a low-cost final solution.
Indeed, the VX-1 KittyHawk has a radically
low parts count. The basic airframe consists
of 4 ribs, an upper skin and a lower skin. In
fact, the aircraft does not use a wing spar as
it is not necessary. The VX-1 also requires
large-area unsupported panels. New material
developments in this area are being implemented in the realization of the KittyHawk™
design.
JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #95 - Special JEC Europe - March 2015

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