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Automotive Industry

China's Paradigm Shift - new car being developed

Automotive Industries, June, 1999 by Gerry Kobe

Armed with cutting-edge composite technology, a group of Chinese investors intend to change the way automobiles are built.

In March 1996, Chrysler wowed the world's automotive press when it unveiled its plastic-bodied China Concept Vehicle (CCV). The CCV was conceived as the "people's car" for developing nations -- a cheap, reliable and affordable new-car alternative to be sold at used-car prices. Since then, the project has changed its name to Composite Concept Vehicle, but the operative word "concept" remains. The car is still an engineering exercise; it is not production bound.

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Coincidentally, or perhaps not, about the same time Chrysler announced CCV's existence, investors in China suddenly "identified" the need for a plastic-bodied people's car. The group approached a number of U.S.-based composites "experts," ultimately creating a company called GLD Associates. Within GLD, the services of San Antonio, Texas-based Automotive Design and Composites (ADC) were included for sourcing responsibility and checking of composite structures.

As the program progressed, it became apparent that the engineers and designers involved with the project could not meet the rigid time line demanded by the investors. GLD Associates eventually dissolved and in November of 1997 the project was taken over completely by ADC.

"We had a clean sheet of paper and a `go ahead' from the investors," says Michael Van Steenburg, founder and CEO of ADC. "We learned that the objective was to leap past existing Chinese automotive technology because the Chinese are tired of having old tooling and vehicle designs dumped on them by major automakers. They wanted completely new technology to make a leap to modern day."

Van Steenburg explains that the Chinese have a series of five-year plans, and the ninth fifth-year plan is to establish the Chinese auto industry as a premier industry in the world. With that objective in mind, the investors insisted on lightweight, fuel-efficient and low- emission vehicles that would rival any vehicle in existence, or on the drawing board, around the world. Van Steenburg's answer is a composite-bodied, composite chassis, hybrid-electric vehicle called Paradigm. The car is on schedule to start volume production at the Deyang, China, plant of Sichuan Huatong Motors in the first quarter of 2000. The factory, which sits on 500 acres, will be surrounded by production facilities from 30 to 50 major suppliers. It will have 21 vacuum forming machines, nine co-extrusion machines and only a few hundred workers producing over 60,000 units a year. Manufactured cost on the car is targeted at only $6,500, even at half-plant capacity.

Paradigm's incredibly low cost is the result of its unconventional design, materials and manufacturing process. "Our pultruded chassis is among the most radical technology on the car," Van Steenburg says. "This chassis has evolved from a heavier and more time-consuming fiberglass chassis to the pultruded version that is now over four times as strong, half the cost at .just $600 and down to 80 pounds." (see story p.85for details of the pultuded process).

The load-bearing members of the chassis consist of a 6 x 10-inch pultruded center backbone, and 4 x 6-inch pultruded outer mils. All rails have 1/8-inch wall construction, and are extruded by Spartec in Fort Worth, Texas. The connectors are also pultruded from the plan view to orient the fibers in the right direction for strength. In essence, they become mandrels that are slipped in and then glued with a 2,800-psi shear strength adhesive. The joint angles are all complimentary so rails can be cut, flipped over 180 degrees and cut again to minimize scrap.

When the pultruded skeleton is finished, a molded, thermoplastic tub made from GE's GTX material drops over the rails and is bonded in place creating, in essence, a thermoplastic unibody with pultruded stiffeners. Once completed, the chassis will withstand a 9,000-pound load directly in the center with just 3/10-inch deflection.

The suspension of Paradigm is also made of composite materials. Because composites attenuate vibration, there is no need for rubber bushings. A single-piece, composite lower suspension arm replaces both conventional lower control arms, inboard pivots, coil springs, shocks and sway bar.

Van Steenburg says the manufactured cost of the complex component is just $25. He further claims the "free-floating, double fulcrum design suspension decouples the roll of the body," providing superb handling for the 2,000-pound midsize vehicle. Composite springs, similar to those used on the Corvette rear suspension, are tuned to be self-damping by including a core material that is made of elastomer which creates shearing action inside the spring.

For fast interior development, ADC turned to Indiana-based Weiland Design. Weiland does mostly custom conversion van work, but since they do virtually all aspects of an interior in house, Van Steenburg says he knows that when they come up with an idea, they can make it without surprises. The interior, still under development, is plastic intensive and features a belts-to-seats design. Currently, there is a pultruded seat flame in the works at lower cost and weight than steel or aluminum.

Automotive Industry

China's Paradigm Shift - new car being developed

Automotive Industries, June, 1999 by Gerry Kobe

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