Study on the Application of CFRT Prepreg Unidirectional Tape in Lightweight and Safe Body Structures of New Energy Vehicles
Release time:
2026-01-23
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1. Introduction
The rapid development of the new energy vehicle (NEV) industry has not only driven progress in power systems and energy management technologies, but also put forward higher requirements for body structural materials. NEVs generally adopt battery packs as their main energy storage systems; the heavy weight of batteries directly affects vehicle range and dynamic performance. Therefore, body lightweighting has become a crucial strategy to improve NEV performance and economic efficiency.
At the same time, requirements for NEVs in terms of collision safety, rollover protection, and occupant protection are gradually increasing. Traditional steel body structures face a trade-off between weight and energy absorption, making it difficult to balance high strength and lightweighting. Continuous Fiber-Reinforced Thermoplastic (CFRT) prepreg unidirectional tapes, with their high specific strength, high specific stiffness, excellent impact toughness, and processing flexibility, have emerged as a new material option for optimizing NEV body structures.
Based on the design requirements of body structures, this paper analyzes the advantages of CFRT prepreg unidirectional tapes in lightweighting, structural safety, energy absorption, and manufacturing processes, and discusses their application prospects and development trends in future NEVs.
2. Performance Requirements of NEV Body Structures
The main functions of NEV body structures include: providing overall load-bearing capacity and rigidity to ensure vehicle handling performance, protecting battery packs and occupant safety, and achieving lightweighting to improve driving range. Body structures must also meet collision safety standards, including frontal collision, side collision, rollover, and rear-end collision scenarios.
In addition, NEV body structures need to ensure structural durability, fatigue life, and environmental adaptability during long-term use. The layout of battery systems increases the complexity of local structural stress; structural materials must balance lightweighting and high strength while having good energy absorption and deformation control capabilities.
3. Material Characteristics of CFRT Prepreg Unidirectional Tapes and Compatibility with Vehicle Bodies
CFRT prepreg unidirectional tapes are composed of continuous fibers and a thermoplastic resin matrix, and their material structure determines their advantages in NEV bodies. Continuous fibers provide high specific strength and high specific stiffness, and can be directionally laid along the stress paths of the vehicle body to maximize structural performance. The thermoplastic resin matrix endows the material with good toughness and impact energy absorption capacity, as well as fatigue resistance and environmental durability, making it suitable for long-term service of vehicle bodies.
This material structure also supports modular design and hot pressing molding processes, enabling high-precision manufacturing of local body structural components in factories, improving assembly efficiency and quality consistency. The reheatable and repairable characteristics of CFRT materials also facilitate the maintenance of local body damage.
4. Body Lightweight Design Logic
Lightweight design of NEVs not only considers material weight reduction, but also ensures performance optimization of battery systems and vehicle power systems. The high specific performance of CFRT prepreg unidirectional tapes allows engineers to optimize the laying direction of fibers precisely in key stress-bearing parts of the vehicle body. Through this directional reinforcement, structural weight can be significantly reduced while ensuring strength and rigidity.
Lightweight body structures directly improve driving range, reduce power consumption, and enhance vehicle dynamic response and handling stability. In the vehicle system, the weight reduction effect has a significant positive impact on front and rear suspensions, braking systems, and battery pack layout.
5. Structural Safety and Collision Energy Absorption
NEV body structures require materials to have high strength and controllable deformation capabilities under collision conditions. The continuous fiber structure of CFRT prepreg unidirectional tapes can bear loads along the stress direction, and the thermoplastic matrix gradually absorbs energy when subjected to local impact, forming a progressive failure mode. This mode can effectively disperse impact energy and protect the safety of occupants and battery packs.
Through laminated design, CFRT materials can achieve stiffness gradient optimization in body side panels, B-pillars, and front and rear energy absorption zones, enabling the structure to match performance requirements under different collision conditions. This design logic is difficult to achieve in traditional metal body structures while maintaining lightweight advantages.
6. Fatigue Performance and Long-Term Reliability
During driving, NEV body structures experience frequent vibrations, road impacts, and temperature changes. The continuous fiber structure and tough matrix of CFRT materials can disperse stress, delay crack initiation and propagation, thereby improving fatigue life. Compared with steel bodies, CFRT bodies exhibit more stable structural performance during long-term use, while reducing the problem of microcrack accumulation caused by fatigue.
This long-term reliability provides NEVs with a longer vehicle service life and lower maintenance costs, enabling the long-term balance of lightweight design and safety.
7. Guarantee Role of Manufacturing Processes for Body Performance
CFRT prepreg unidirectional tapes are usually manufactured using hot pressing molding, compression molding, and automated tape laying technologies in body production. By precisely controlling fiber laying direction and the number of layers, high-precision and well-compacted body structural components can be produced. The rapid curing characteristics of the thermoplastic matrix help shorten production cycles and meet mass production needs.
In addition, modular body design enables prefabrication of CFRT structural components in factories and rapid on-site assembly. This method not only improves manufacturing efficiency, but also ensures body structural consistency, which is conducive to the realization of vehicle lightweighting and safety performance.
8. Multi-Functional Integration and Intelligent Trends
Future NEV body design will move toward multi-functional integration. CFRT prepreg unidirectional tapes can not only provide structural load-bearing capacity, but also integrate flame retardancy, sound insulation, thermal management, and sensor monitoring functions to achieve high-performance integrated structures. For example, in battery compartment enclosure structures, CFRT materials can balance lightweighting, impact protection, and thermal management functions, improving battery safety.
The development of intelligent manufacturing and digital twin technologies enables precise control and performance prediction throughout the design, simulation, production, and maintenance processes of CFRT body structures, providing data support for vehicle performance optimization.
9. Economic Efficiency and Full-Life-Cycle Benefits
Although the initial material cost of CFRT prepreg unidirectional tapes is higher than that of traditional steel, the overall economic benefits are significantly improved through reduced energy consumption, extended driving range, enhanced shock absorption effects, and long-term reliability brought by lightweighting. Modular manufacturing and rapid assembly further reduce manufacturing and transportation costs.
Full-life-cycle analysis shows that CFRT bodies have obvious advantages in vehicle energy consumption, maintenance cycles, and secondary recycling, helping the NEV industry achieve green and low-carbon development goals.
10. Engineering Application Cases and Experience
In actual NEV development, CFRT materials have been pilot-applied in B-pillars, side panels, roof panels, and battery compartment enclosure structures. By optimizing fiber laying paths and layer design, engineers can simultaneously meet the goals of body rigidity, collision safety, and lightweighting.
Practical verification shows that CFRT structural bodies can achieve energy dispersion and progressive absorption in side collision tests, while reducing local mass by approximately 20–30%, providing significant improvements in vehicle range and handling.
11. Technical Challenges and Development Directions
The large-scale application of CFRT bodies still faces challenges such as material costs, connection technologies, and full-life-cycle certification. In the future, it is necessary to solve problems related to structural integration and production efficiency through material performance optimization, process standardization, connection system innovation, and digital design methods.
Multi-functional integration, recyclability, and intelligent monitoring capabilities will become key development directions for CFRT body materials, providing NEVs with higher performance, lower energy consumption, and safer body structure solutions.
12. Conclusion
CFRT prepreg unidirectional tapes demonstrate advantages in lightweighting, high strength, excellent energy absorption, and long-term reliability in NEV body structures. The synergy between continuous fibers and the thermoplastic matrix enables comprehensive improvements in vehicle collision safety, range extension, and structural optimization. With the maturity of manufacturing processes and engineering technologies, CFRT prepreg unidirectional tapes will play an important role in the NEV industry, providing a solid material foundation for the development of green, safe, and high-performance vehicles.
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