Design and development of glass/basalt fiber reinforced composite material for automobile applications

The main focus of automotive industry is on developing and applying new materials and technologies for enhancing the comfort and security levels in the vehicles. To fulfill this requirement high strength and high modulus fiber reinforced composite structures play an important role in the automotive industry. The novelty in this research work is that the composite panel made by 2 D woven fabrics by using Glass and Basalt fabric material composite structure by suitable incorporation of panel design which enhanced the mechanical properties. The blend proportion of Glass and Basalt fabric reinforcement was 100% Glass, 100% Basalt and 50:50 Glass/Basalt fabrics. Hand lay-up process was adopted to fabricate the composite panels. Different sets of panel were produce by varying the curing time, pressure. The resultant panels were analyzed for the mechanical properties such as Tensile strength, Flexural strength and Impact strength tests. From the analysis of results the panel made by using 100% Basalt fabric with 20 bar pressure and 15 minutes curing time showed a better tensile strength of 95 MPa, flexural strength of 29.91 MPa and impact strength of 12.50 MPa. Similarly, the results of 50:50 Glass/Basalt fibre with 30 bar pressure and 15 minutes curing time showed a better tensile strength of 94.83 MPa, flexural strength of 29.51 MPa and impact strength of 12.30 MPa. The outcome of the findings is that the mechanical properties of panel are directly proportional to pressure and time and blend type.