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Design of a CFRP composite monocoque: simulation approach

To cite this article: Tatthep Kanketr et al 2019 IOP Conf. Ser.: Mater. Sci. Eng. 501 012014

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9th TSME-International Conference on Mechanical Engineering (TSME-ICoME 2018) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 501 (2019) 012014 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/501/1/012014

Design of a CFRP composite monocoque: simulation

approach

Tatthep Kanketr*, Ekkarin Phongphinnittana and Baramee Patamaprohm

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

*Corresponding Author: [email protected], Telephone Number 0-2555-2000 ext.

8315, Fax Number 0-2586-9541

Abstract. This article deals with the design of CFRP composite monocoque chassis for
Formula Student race car. The design objective is to maximize a specific torsional stiffness of
the monocoque and also satisfy the safety requirement assigned by Formula SAE. The
sandwich structure has been used regarding to its high flexural rigidity per weight. The
thickness and stacking sequences of composite plies have been optimized for each particular
zone of the monocoque chassis using the FEM simulation.

1. Introduction
Formula SAE is a design competition for engineering students to have an opportunity to apply their
knowledge to design a downscale formula race car, so called a formula student. Among various
components, chassis is the main one that affects the behavior of a race car and provides a safety for
drivers. The chassis needs to have a sufficient stiffness and satisfy the safety standard qualified by
Formula SAE. Currently, most of chassis in this competition are a tubular steel space frame which has
limitations of weight. The replacement of space frame by a lightweight structure will improve a
performance of a race car [1]. A monocoque made from carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP)
composite seems to be a good candidate thanks to its very high strength-to-weight ratio. Although the
use of CFRP composite structure for monocoque chassis in race car or high-performance car is very
common, the detail on thickness and stacking of composite is always confidential. Moreover, this
material is very costly and highly depends on its fabrication process. Thus, the simulation-based
design is preferable to optimize the material parameters. A hybrid monocoque has been chosen in this
study to economize the budget of the production process. This type of monocoque refers to a
composite cockpit with conventional steel tube sub-frame (Figure 1). One of the key properties of
racing cars is a torsional stiffness of chassis. High torsional stiffness will result in a good handling
performance especially in cornering [2]. This property has been studied for different tube cross-section
of space frame [3] and depends on a class of vehicle as shown in Table 1. In order to provide a high
torsional stiffness, the composite sandwich structure has been used regarding to its high flexural
rigidity per weight [4]. This structure consists of composite skin and core materials. The foam core
material has been chosen since it has a good energy absorption and relatively low price comparing to a
high-performance honeycomb core. This study aims to optimize the thickness and stacking sequences
of composite plies for each particular zone of the monocoque chassis. The FEM simulation has been
used in cooperation with analytical method in order to maximize its specific torsional stiffness and
simultaneously satisfy the safety requirement of the Formula SAE. The results from this study will be
used in the future work for a crash simulation of this monocoque.

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 9th TSME-International Conference on Mechanical Engineering (TSME-ICoME 2018) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 501 (2019) 012014 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/501/1/012014

Table 1. different chassis torsional stiffness

of vehicle class
Vehicle Torsional stiffness
( N  m / degree )
FSAE 1000 – 5000
Passenger 5000 – 20000
Sports 15000 – 40000
Formula One 10000 – 100000

Figure 1. hybrid monocoque

2. Materials
In the study, the sandwich structure has been used thank to its high flexural rigidity per
weight. The increased distance between two rigid skins by lightweight core can notably improve the
structural stiffness while slightly adds an additional weight to the structure. The sandwich structure
consists of skin and core material as shown in Figure 2 and 3. The CFRP composite is designated for a
skin material while the closed-cell rigid foam is used as a core material. The mechanical properties of
these two materials will be implemented in the FEM simulation.

Figure 2.
Components of Figure 3.
sandwich 2x2 twill
structure weave fabric

2.1 Composite
The CFRP composite for skin material is fabricate from a carbon fiber woven fabric with 3k,
2x2 twill weave pattern and thickness of 0.25mm as a reinforcement phase and epoxy resin as a matrix
phase. The 3k means 3,000 filaments per tow and the number of fibers in warp and weft direction is
equal (2x2) [2]. The hand lay-up process was used to fabricate specimens for mechanical properties
characterization. The curing took about 3-4 hours at room temperatures. The mechanical properties
were characterized from the previous study [5] and summarize in Table 2.

Table 2. Properties of Carbon composite

Materials E1 E2 E3  12  23  12 G12 G23 G31 S11 S22 S33

Properties (MPa) (MPa) (MPa)
(GPa) (GPa) (GPa) (GPa) (GPa) (GPa)
Carbon 58.04 58.04 3.5 0.04 0.38 0.38 2.70 1.25 1.25 577.04 577.04 58.87

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9th TSME-International Conference on Mechanical Engineering (TSME-ICoME 2018) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 501 (2019) 012014 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/501/1/012014

2.2. Foam
For a core material, PVC closed-cell rigid foam from DIAB has been chosen. The advantage
of closed-cell rigid foam is energy absorption by its plastic deformation. It simultaneously enhances
the crash performance of the monocoque chassis. The thickness of foam core is fixed to 20 mm. Its
mechanical behavior and material properties have been characterized from the previous study and
summarize in Table 3 and Figure 4.

Table 3. Properties of PVC foam

Materials E  Syield (
Properties (MPa) ( = vplastic ) MPa)
Rigid Foam 34.15 0 0.88

Figure 4. PVC foam behavior under compression tests

3. FEM Simulations
According to the FSAE Structural Equivalency Spreadsheet (SES) [6], there are the minimum
requirements of mechanical properties including flexural rigidity (EI), area (A), yield tensile strength
(YTS), ultimate tensile strength (UTS), max load at mid-span to give UTS for 1m long tube, max
deflection at mid-span to give UTS for 1m long tube, and energy absorbed up to UTS, known as the
baselines, for alternative material to be used in chassis design [5]. All properties baselines are
equivalent to space frame steel tube properties for safety issues. Each material has different baseline
requirements. For composite materials, the minimum bending or flexural modulus of the T3.30
Laminate test in SES is required.
The simulation approach is preceded in this study. Two stages of FEM simulations have been
carried out using Abaqus/CAE. The simulation of three points bending test on sandwich structures
with different design of composite stacking needs to be initially performed in order to ensure that each
design is satisfied the flexural modulus baseline. Then, the potential designs will be used in the second
simulation stage which is the composite monocoque simulation. The objective of this simulation is to
investigate structural torsional stiffness of monocoque when using the given composite architectures.
For Formula SAE, the monocoque structure can be divided into 7 sections as shown in the Figure 5.
and the Table 4. Each section also requires different baseline.

Table 4. Overview of monocoque section

Colour Section Name

Front Hoop Bracing (FHB)
Front Bulkhead Support Structure (FBSS)
Front Floor (FF)
Top Cockpit (TC)
Side Impact Structure Side (SISS)
Side Impact Structure Floor (SISF)
Figure 5. Monocoque different sections Back Support (BS)

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9th TSME-International Conference on Mechanical Engineering (TSME-ICoME 2018) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 501 (2019) 012014 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/501/1/012014

3.1 Sandwich structure bending simulation

The numerical sandwich structure specimen was created according to the FSAE structure
Equivalency Spreadsheet (SES), Laminate test result T3.30. The width of sandwich panel is
recommended to 275 mm and the span length between supports is set to 400 mm. The foam core
thickness is fixed to 20 mm. The sandwich panel contains 3 layers of composite on each side with the
thickness of 1 mm per layer. The 3D model was created in Abaqus with C3D8R element type. The
global mesh size was set to 3 mm which leads to 202,400 elements. All support pins and loading pin
of bending test were defined as a rigid body. Only sandwich panel specimen was allowed to deform.
The outer composite layers were assigned a different fiber orientation defined as SSP (Stacking
Sequence Pattern) for each simulation. In this study, 4 SSPs have been investigated and summarized in
Table 5. The two support pins were fixed and a 7500N force was applied at the loading pin as shown
in Figure 6. The sandwich pattern design from this simulation stage was guaranteed to meet the SES
sheet requirement.

Table 5. Stacking sequence of sandwich

structure
Code Stacking sequence
SSP1 [0 / 0 / 0 / Core / 0 / 0 / 0]
SSP2 [0 / 45 / 0 / Core / 0 / -45 / 0]
SSP3 [0 / 30 / 0 / Core / 0 / -30 / 0] Figure 6. 3-points bending model and boundary
conditions
SSP4 [0 / 60 / 0 / Core / 0 / -60 / 0]

3.2 Monocoque torsional stiffness simulation

The hybrid model was used to simulate the torsional stiffness of the monocoque chassis. This
model uses shell elements for the composite structure part and 2-node linear beam section element for
the steel tubes both of sub-frame and suspension components as shown in Figure 2. The composite
sandwich properties including core thickness, skin layer thickness and stacking sequence of composite
layers were assigned to shell elements while steel properties and cross-sectional geometries of space
frame tubes were given to 2-node linear beam section elements in Abaqus. The boundary conditions
were set as a typical torsional stiffness test; the rear A-beams were fixed at both sides and the force
was applied to two font A-beams as shown in Figure 6. The displacement under loading was obtained
from the simulation to calculate the angle of twist using eq.1. Finally, the torsional rigidity was
determined by eq.2 using the angle of twist and the applied force.

Fl
TR =
1000   (1)
2 180
 
l  (2)
where
TR Torsional Rigidity (N  m / deg ree)
d  displacement in vertical axis (mm)
l  lenght between left A-beam to right A-beam (mm)
F  testing load ( N )
  angle twist

Figure 7. Boundary condition of torsional stiffness simulation

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9th TSME-International Conference on Mechanical Engineering (TSME-ICoME 2018) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 501 (2019) 012014 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/501/1/012014

4. Simulation results

4.1 Sandwich structure bending result

Figure 8. 3-point bending contour of a vertical deflection (Y-axis)

The vertical deflection of 3-point bending simulation is shown in Figure 7 as the contour
displacement in Y-axis. The bending of flexural modulus of the 4 SSPs is defined as a slope of applied
force-displacement curves (Figure 4). The results show that all SSPs pass the minimum requirement
from SES laminate testing at 190 N/mm.

Figure 9. Simulation results of 3-points bending test

In addition to the minimum flexural modulus of sandwich structure used in monocoque

chassis (the first stage simulation), 4 out of 7 sections of monocoque which are greatly affect the
torsional stiffness; Front Hoop Bracing (FHB), Front Bulkhead Support Structure (FBSS), Side Impact
Structure Side (SISS) and Side Impact Structure Floor (SISF) have to pass their minimum
requirements assigned by FSAE SES. Each particular zone has different baseline which relatively
compare the sandwich structure to a number of steel tube as shown in Table 6. We noted that the SISS
and SISF were considered together known as Side Impact Structure (SIS). The required mechanical
properties; EI and YTS for each zone have been calculated and compare to its baselines in term of
percentages (Table 4). The linearity limit at 6200 N in Figure 4 has been inputted to FSAE Structural
Equivalency Spreadsheet for YTS calculation and compare to YTS baseline (steel). The percentages of
EI and YTS for the three mandatory zones need to be over 100% so that they can be used in
monocoque model to simulate the torsional stiffness.

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9th TSME-International Conference on Mechanical Engineering (TSME-ICoME 2018) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 501 (2019) 012014 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/501/1/012014

Table 6. The result of structure equivalent in percent

Zone Number EI Yield tensile
of tubes strength
FHB 1 100.3% 161.1%
FBSS 3 101.3% 154.0%
SIS 3 115.8% NA

4.2 Monocoque torsional stiffness result

The simulation result of vertical displacement for angle of twist calculation and local in-plan
shear stress (S12,local) for Model 1 is demonstrated in Figure 6. Table 5 is the summary of all models
angle of twist and torsional stiffness along with their composite designs.

Figure 10. Contour plot of a Y-deflection and shear stress

Table 7. Summary of torsional stiffness in different patterns.

FHB FBSS FF TC SISS SISF BS Degree Torsional
( ) stiffness
( N  m / degree )
Model 1 SSP1 SSP1 SSP1 SSP1 SSP1 SSP1 SSP1 0.6505 5336.63
Model 2 SSP1 SSP1 SSP2 SSP2 SSP1 SSP1 SSP1 0.5710 6079.57
Model 3 SSP2 SSP1 SSP1 SSP2 SSP2 SSP1 SSP1 0.5204 6671.41
Model 4 SSP3 SSP1 SSP1 SSP3 SSP3 SSP1 SSP1 0.5538 6267.43
Model 5 SSP4 SSP1 SSP1 SSP4 SSP4 SSP1 SSP1 0.5596 6204.73
Model 6 SSP2 SSP2 SSP2 SSP2 SSP2 SSP2 SSP2 0.4900 7085.46

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9th TSME-International Conference on Mechanical Engineering (TSME-ICoME 2018) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 501 (2019) 012014 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/501/1/012014

5. Discussion
The results from the 3-points bending simulation show that the orientations of fiber which
interprets by composite stacking do not affect the flexural modulus as long as they contain the 0°
woven ply (1.2% max. difference). This can be explained by the nature of composite that preferable
supports a given load in fiber direction so that the 0° woven ply will support almost all bending load.
On the other hand, the fiber orientation has highly effect on the torsional stiffness as the results of
monocoque simulation. The models 1-7 show the modification of torsional stiffness depending on
their SSPs. The maximum torsional stiffness was obtained from Model 6 at 7085 Nm where the SSP2
[0/45/0/Core/0/-45/0] was applied to all monocoque section. This shows a good agreement with the
theory of composite mentioning that the ±45° composite stacking sequence is preferable to withstand
the torsional load. Comparing to the torsional stiffness of metallic space frame at 1900-2000 N·m, the
composite monocoque is far better in this concern and will definitely provide a better handling for the
race car. However, in the real-world application, the monocoque does not have only torsional load but
also bending load or even impact load in case of crash. The use of Model 6 may not be optimized for
all loading. Hence the criteria to design a composite monocoque should also have considered together
the other structure properties, especially the energy absorbed capacity which relates directly to the
safety issue of drivers.

6. Conclusion
This study is to design the composite monocoque using simulation approach to maximize its
torsional stiffness. The conclusion can be made as follows:

- The flexural modulus from all proposed composite stacking patterns is relatively the same
since all designs contain a 0° woven ply which is a dominated ply to support bending stress
- Fiber orientations which represent by composite stacking have an effect of torsional stiffness
of monocoque structure
- FEM simulation simplifies the difficulty to optimize a composite stacking that satisfy the
safety standard and maximize the torsional stiffness at the same time
- The future work will focus on the effect of core material thickness which also relate to the
crash energy absorption of the monocoque

References
[1] Takahashi N, Kageyama Y, and Kawamura N 2011 Research of Multi-Axial Carbon Fiber
Prepreg Material for Vehicle Body (No. 2011-01-0216). SAE Technical Paper.
[2] Sampo E 2010 Chassis torsional stiffness: analysis of the influence on vehicle dynamics. In
SAE 2010World Congress&Exhibition.
[3] Liu CH, Li G, Ma YH and Yang XG 2018 Torsional Stiffness Comparison of Different Tube
Cross-Sections of a Formula SAE Car Space Frame. In MATEC Web of Conferences 153
04002 EDP Sciences.
[4] Gay D and Hoa SV 2007 Composite materials: design and applications. CRC press. vol 4-
chapter 4, 69-81.
[5] Patamaprohm B, et al, “Improving the impact resistance of CFRP composite structures”, The
32nd Conference of Mechanical Engineering Network of Thailand, 3-6 July 2018,
Mukdahan,Thailand
[6] SAE International [Internet]. Pennsylvania: 2018 FSAE structural Equivalency Spreadsheet
V1.3 Available from: https://www.fsaeonline.com/cdsweb/gen/DocumentResources.aspx