CF is about 40% the wight of steel at least when comparing body panels... but is something else when comparing a tube frame vs. a honeycomb monicoque either aluminum, or CF... or hybrid... it is incredibly rigid, and dubles as a saftey cell.
Composite Car bodies in Crash Situations
Another current issue for composite car bodies is the insufficient experience of impact behaviour other than for small racing car monocoques. This results from the complex, non-plastic failure of the material, which is difficult to model or predict. Any structure for an automotive application needs to satisfy a number of performance criteria, namely:
Suitable torsional rigidity for ‘regular’ driving
Sufficient stiffness and strength to protect the occupant in the event of a low-speed (<30mph) collision
• progressive and controlled failure of the structure in order to reduce the risk of injury in a highspeed (>30mph) collision.
Typically, the first two of these criteria can be easily met by an advanced composite structure. The third requirement is more difficult to achieve, as the materials tend to behave in a linear-elastic way until failure, which is then instant and catastrophic, leaving minimal residual strength. The area of impact performance of lightweight carbon fibre structures justifies extensive investigation, since carbon fibre composites can provide exceptionally high levels of crash energy absorption if structures are engineered effectively
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this 'car' has a monicoque... so its not just simply body panels... the monicoque has predictable crash caractaristics.
just a general reference chart...
Linear Mode
