Carbon fibre reinforced plastic, or CFRP, is a material that is light in weight, yet has great strength and rigidity. Therefore it is a fantastic material for the manufacture of products that need to be both lightweight and extremely stress-resistant.
But the traditional method of manufacturing CFRP is complicated, and thus the material is expensive to produce. Part of the reason for the costly and complicated production of CFRP is its composite structure – carbon fibres mixed with plastic resins. This combo gives CFRP its unique “light yet stiff” characteristic. It’s really light – 50 percent lighter than steel and 30 percent less than aluminium.
And because CFRP is not a metal, it has greater resistance to corrosion and is less susceptible to damage when exposed to harsh conditions, such as bad weather and extreme temperatures. For decades, CFRP has been found mostly in exotic products that exist above and beyond the asphalt on which cars roll.
For instance, America’s most advanced tactical fighter jet, the F-22 Raptor, is built with a variety of tailor-made materials that include titanium, aluminium, thermoplastic and carbon fibre composites. Closer to the ground, CFRP has seen plenty of applications in motorsport, including Formula One cars and rally cars.
CFRP has also found its way onto the road, but only in extreme (and extremely expensive) machines such as the Lambo Aventador and Pagani Zonda. Amazingly, a less exotic automotive name is leading the way for CFRP application: BMW. The German giant has pioneered a sustainable new way of producing CFRP to make it suitable for mass-market models.
As a result, it has jumped ahead of other CFRP proponents and revolutionised the automotive world along the way. The revolution began back in 2003, when BMW took the plunge and invested
in the research, development and rollout of CFRP for cars. Since then, it has gleaned plenty of experience and refined its CFRP engineering capabilities, and now possesses a benchmark level of expertise in CFRP technology, production processes, tooling solutions and cycle times.
At BMW’s factory in Leipzig, Germany, where the i3 and i8 are manufactured, the usage of carbon components is unique, given the fact that CFRP has always been a low-volume, high-cost niche material. BMW has turned the rare, exotic material into something practical and available.
With BMW’s brave democratisation and ongoing popularisation of CFRP, the car industry’s carbon future has already arrived – well in advance.
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