Glass Mat Reinforced Thermorplastic (GMT) refers to a novel, energy-saving and lightweight composite material that uses thermoplastic resin as the matrix and glass fiber mat as the reinforced skeleton. It is currently an extremely active composite material in the world. The development of materials is regarded as one of the new materials of the century.
GMT can generally produce sheet semi-finished products, and then directly process them into products of the desired shape. GMT has complex design features, excellent impact resistance, and is easy to assemble and reprocess. It is praised for its strength and lightness, making it an ideal structural component to replace steel and reduce mass.
1. The advantages of GMT materials
1. High specific strength: The strength of GMT is similar to hand-laid polyester FRP products, and its density is 1.01-1.19g/cm, which is smaller than thermosetting FRP (1.8-2.0g/cm), so it has higher specific strength .
2. Lightweight and energy saving: The weight of the car door made of GMT material can be reduced from 26Kg to 15Kg, and the thickness of the back can be reduced, so that the space of the car is increased. The energy consumption is only 60%-80% of that of steel products. 35%-50%.
3. Compared with thermosetting SMC (sheet molding compound), GMT material has the advantages of short molding cycle, good impact performance, recyclability and long storage period.
4. Impact performance: GMT's ability to absorb impact is 2.5-3 times higher than that of SMC. Under the impact of impact, SMC, steel and aluminum all have dents or cracks, but GMT is safe.
5. High rigidity: GMT contains GF fabric, which can maintain its shape even if there is an impact of 10mph.
Second, the application of GMT materials in the automotive field
GMT sheet has high specific strength, can produce lightweight parts, and has high design freedom, strong collision energy absorption, and good processing performance. It has been widely used in the automobile industry abroad since the 1990s. With the increasing requirements for fuel economy, recyclability and ease of processing, the market for GMT materials used in the automotive industry will continue to grow steadily.
At present, GMT materials are widely used in the automotive industry, mainly including seat frames, bumpers, dashboards, engine hoods, battery brackets, pedals, front ends, floors, guards, rear doors, car roofs, luggage Brackets, sun visors, spare tire racks and other components.
1. Seat frame
Ford Motor Company's 2015 FordMustang (parameter | picture) The compression molding design of the second-row seat backrest on the sports car was designed by the Tier 1 supplier/processor Continental Structural Plastics using Hanwha L&C's 45% unidirectional glass fiber reinforced glass fiber mat thermoplastic Composite materials (GMT) and Century Tool & Gage's molds, compression molding, successfully meet the challenging European safety regulations ECE under the condition of maintaining luggage load.
This component requires more than 100 FEA iterations to complete, eliminating five parts from the earlier steel structure design, and saving 3.1 kg per vehicle in a thinner structure, which is also easier to install.
2. Rear anti-collision beam
Hyundai new Tucson (parameters | picture) 2015 model full rear anti-collision beam is made of GMT material. Compared with steel products, the weight is lighter and the cushioning performance is better. It reduces the weight and fuel consumption while ensuring the reduction of vehicle weight and fuel consumption. Safety performance.
3. Front module
Mercedes-Benz selected Quadrant Plastic Composites GMTexTM fabric-reinforced thermoplastic composite material as the front-end module component in its S-Class (parameter | image) luxury coupe.
4. Under the body guard
The underbody protection made by Quadrant Plastic Composites with high-performance GMTex TM is applied to the Mercedes Off-Road Special Edition.
5. Tailgate skeleton
In addition to the general advantages of GMT tailgate structure that can achieve functional integration and weight reduction, the formability of GMT also realizes product forms that are impossible to achieve with steel or aluminum. It is applied to Nissan Murano (parameters | pictures) and Infiniti FX (parameters | Picture) 45 and other models.
6. Dashboard frame
The new concept of GMT manufacturing instrument panel frame has been used on several models of the Ford Group: Volvo S40 and V50, Mazda 3 and Ford C-Max. These composite materials can achieve a wide range of functional integration, especially by including the vehicle beam in the form of a thin steel tube in the molded part, and compared with the traditional method, the weight is greatly reduced without increasing the cost.
7. Battery bracket