Revolutionary Pioneer i3/i8 Revolutionary technology to subvert the automotive industry

　　 [Technical Channel of Quanzhou Yisheng Machinery Co., Ltd.] The automobile industry has been developed for more than a hundred years, and the manufacturing mode of automobiles has not changed in essence during this period. They are all stamping-welding-painting-final assembly. However, the appearance of the BMW i8 suddenly gave people a new understanding of automobile manufacturing. There was no stamping or welding. The car was only connected by bolts and glue, which was quite incredible; while another group of people was playing tricks. With 3D printing technology, the purpose is to use a printer to 'print' a car that can be used and run. Isn't it a bit of a 'fantastic night'? And today I will briefly explain these two revolutionary technologies.

● Traditional automobile manufacturing

　　 Among them, stamping is the process of turning a piece of iron into a body cover, and then covering the different parts by welding The parts are combined to form a car body, and then go through the paint shop to paint the car body, and finally install the interior trim, powertrain, etc., so that a complete car is born. And automakers will also arrange factories and production lines based on these links. You can learn more about it in our factory tour series of articles.

● CFRP carbon fiber reinforced composite material

　　 Speaking of carbon fiber materials, you may be more connected with the words sports car, sports, and lightweight Come up, in fact, its current situation is indeed so.

　　 Before explaining, I must first talk about the good thing about CFRP. CFRP composite material is the most ideal non-metallic material for automobile panels, especially for the lightweight of automobiles. It can reduce the weight of the body while maintaining the anti-collision performance (BMW i3 has participated in the rigorous E-NCAP test before, And received a 4-star rating, click to view collision details: BMW i3 ENCAP collision results released). For automobile manufacturers, CFRP composite materials also show many advantages, such as integration of parts, modularity, low installation cost, and small investment, which avoids the spraying process of traditional car bodies and the corresponding environmental protection treatment and capital costs.

　　Reinforcement: It is the component that bears the load in the composite material.

　　 Matrix: It is one of the main components in the composite material to bond the reinforcement body into a whole and transfer the load to the reinforcement body.

　　 Depending on the type of resin used, as well as the type and state of carbon fiber (which can be made into fabrics and short fibers, etc.), the characteristics of the CFRP made are also It's very different. There are several main intermediate substrates (molding materials) alone. The main molding methods corresponding to these intermediate substrates and molding materials are also different.

● Who is using CFRP materials?

　　 Recently, General Motors Group also announced its CFRP factory project matters and declared Thermoplastic CFRP technology will be used in mass-produced vehicles such as GM passenger cars, trucks and crossovers sold globally in 2015. However, there is currently no information that can spy on GM's progress in CFRP.

　　 Let’s take a video to learn about BMW’s CFRP factory briefly.

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