SHHY Carbon Fiber Composite Technology Corporation is committed to the application of high-performance carbon fiber composite materials in the automotive field. Its core products include carbon fiber drive shafts, carbon fiber electric drive rotor spindles & sheaths, etc.
Carbon fiber composite materials are currently mainly used in wind power, aerospace, sports and leisure and automotive industries.
According to relevant data, wind power and aerospace are the largest application fields of carbon fiber materials in 2019, accounting for 25% and 23% of the global total demand, followed by sports and leisure with 15% of the market share, and automobiles ranked fourth with 11% of the market. share.
The company has jointly developed high-performance carbon fiber transmission products with GKN Automotive, a leading propeller shaft company.
At present, most carbon fiber enterprises in the industrial field use prepreg and manual paving production, but this production method needs to rely on the material design of upstream prepreg enterprises (prepreg is the middle part of carbon fiber production, which needs to be used for carbon fiber and carbon fiber production. resin for preliminary impregnation), and the automation rate is not high.
"The upstream carbon filament material itself is already very expensive, and after the use of prepreg middleware, the cost of the two is superimposed, and the cost of carbon fiber products will double, and the manual laying method is also difficult to meet the large-scale needs of automobile production.
SHHY adopts an automatic winding process to produce carbon fiber products, which realizes no manual participation and reduces the quality uncertainty and process cost caused by human factors; at the same time, it adopts an exclusive resin formula, which saves the link of prepreg middleware. The cost of the product has been reduced.
At the same time, SHHY has also built special winding equipment and software programs to continuously adjust the weaving angle and process of carbon filaments and resins to improve the utilization rate of mechanical properties of carbon filaments. "In other words, use as little carbon fiber material as possible to achieve the same mechanical properties."
The more upstream the power chain of the car is to reduce weight, the more obvious the performance will be.
For example, the weight of the rotating parts in the engine is reduced by 50 grams, which may be equivalent to the weight reduction of the power chassis or the body by 50 kilograms. Therefore, SHHY also has an important order of carbon fiber replacement of parts: powertrain parts>chassis>body.
At present, SHHY's products focus on the powertrain field of vehicles: such as drive shafts, rotors and sheaths, the core components of electric drive for new energy vehicles.
The vehicle-grade carbon fiber driveshaft jointly developed by SHHY and GKN reduces the weight by 30-60% compared with the steel driveshaft, which in turn reduces the weight of the power system, which brings significant performance improvements, such as a reduction in fuel consumption per 100 kilometers by 6- 8%, braking distance reduced by 5%, acceleration time reduced by 8%, etc.
The price of some steel drive shafts on the market is between 1,000-2,000 yuan, and the carbon fiber drive shaft made of prepreg may cost 6,000-7,000 yuan, while SHHY's carbon fiber composite drive shaft is only higher than the price of steel shaft drive shafts 20%.
The rotor and sheath are important components of the electric drive system of the new energy vehicle. After the carbon fiber composite material is used, the weight of the carbon fiber rotor spindle can be reduced by 2.5 to 3KG; at the same time, the electromagnetic loss of 2% of the shaft current can be eliminated for the carbon fiber rotor spindle, and the carbon fiber rotor sheath can enhance the maximum output speed of the motor by 40%.
"The cost of the two core components will only increase the overall cost of the electric drive system by 3%-4%, but it will greatly improve the performance.
At present, SHHY's two major categories of products have received more than ten potential fixed-point projects from auto companies such as SAIC, Xpeng, NIO, Dongfeng, Great Wall, and GAC, and are expected to reach more than 400,000 shipments.
In addition, SHHY is also exploring the possibility of carbon fiber replacement of other components with OEM car manufacturers, such as battery boxes, vehicle AB pillars, etc.
"The price of a normal aluminum alloy battery box is 1700-2500 yuan. We are now using a steel + carbon fiber solution, which is cheaper than the original aluminum alloy and reduces the weight by 30%.
With the further reduction of prices and the further maturity of the material production process, carbon fiber composite materials are expected to achieve large-scale applications in the automotive field.
In the long run, the price of carbon filament will drop to a certain extent. At present, China's carbon fiber production capacity is 200,000 tons, and it has the opportunity to become the world's largest carbon fiber producer. With the rapid decline in the cost of carbon fiber, the automotive industry will actively try more application scenarios of carbon fiber composite materials. "