Suitable bonding method of a multi-material glove compartment for lightweight design

Abstract: Within the framework of this Final Year Project in Mechanical Engineering an investigation is done for a Suitable Bonding Method for a Multi-Material Glove Compartment for Lightweight Design. The industrial partner of this Project is Swedfoam. Decreasing fuel consumption and lowering the carbon foot print for automobiles, lightweight construction is one of the key factors to achieve these regulations and more crucial these aims as future needs. Often a simple idea already has a great potential, such as replacing conventional materials with lighter ones in certain applications. Exactly this is done for the lid of a glove compartment; a metal plate, used as a core of the application beforehand is disposed and replaced with a composite, which decreases the weight of the lid significantly. A problem is faced with the new design of the inner lid of a glove compartment, because due to the lighter material the joining method is changed to bonding. Previously the bonding failed mainly due to temperature changes. A literature survey on the material data is done, as well as lab experiments on the used composite in order to characterize crucial material parameters required for the occurred problems when using bonding as joining method. The results from the experiments and literature survey are used to simulate different bonding methods with the commercial software Abaqus. Results from the simulation are presented using adhesive and tape as bonding methods. Finally it is shown, that it is most important for a successful bonding, where or respectively on which surfaces the bonding is done.