A systematic material-oriented design approach for lightweight components and the CFRP motor wheel case study

Lightweighting is a need in many industrial fields and, in particular, in transports, to reduce energy consumptions and to promote more environmentally friendly solutions. In this context, the use of composite materials has become ever more strategic, and a design approach that effectively combines shapes and materials is by now mandatory. In this work, the Systematic Design Approach has been extended to include potentialities and constraints related to materials and manufacturing at the early steps of the design flow. The proposed approach, named systematic material-oriented design approach, enables designers to identify and to select, in a systematic way, design solutions where shapes are tailored to materials and where benefits and criticalities related to the manufacturing processes are considered. In the paper, each design phase of the approach is described and applied to design the carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) motor wheel of the Emilia 4 solar vehicle. Optimization steps of geometry and materials complete the approach. The design of the wheel is fully detailed as well as its manufacturing and bending tests under static and fatigue conditions. In particular, strain fields were measured with a 3D digital image correlation (DIC) system during static tests to validate the numerical model.