Toymods Car Club Inc: Tech & Conversions => Fibreglass body panels more dangerious in accidents?

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Jimmy19650
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Wodonga
Registered:
May 2005

Re: Fibreglass body panels more dangerious in accidents?	Mon, 08 August 2005 07:52

FRP stands for fibre reinforced plastic. The fibre can be glass, carbon, kevlar, boron, hessian, hemp or even hair. The plastic can be any type of plastic resin. The plastic is purely to orientate the fibres and to provide things like colour, waterproof object and bulk. The plastic resin has little effect on the final strength of the finished product. Carbon-low impact strength, high tensile strength, will shatter on impact which makes it dangerous to pedestrians Fiberglass-will flex a bit more wont shatter as easily, but can still be dangerous to pedestrians Kevlar-very good impact strength, they make bullet proof vest out of this stuff, however, the tensile strength not as good as carbon. Then we have a range of different resins that can be used-polyester, vinyl ester and epoxy resin. There is also lots of different way of curing these resins which also affects the final characteristics of the finished product. The problem the authorities have with FRP panels is there is no quality control in the panels which can result in a huge variation in strengths between different manufacturers. Another problem is that a lot of panels are welded in and are stressed members. When people replace stressed steel panels with FRP, it creates a whole new set of problems that cannot be predicted. This also affects the rigidity of the entire vehicle. Newer vehicles also use their panels as crumple zones, where the properties and shape of the components are designed to provide consistent and predictable rates of deformation and energy absorption. Add a FRP panel into the equation with its different rate of deformation and energy absorption, and the huge differences between manufacturers, and we have a lot of manufacturers and authorities who arent happy and nervous of the effect these aftermarket panels will have on the characteristics of their vehicles. [Report message to a moderator]

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