Redesign of a composite sports car to accommodate a battery electric powertrain for type approval in the European Union

The goal of this research was to get a better understanding of the consequences of the integration of a battery electric powertrain on the chassis layout and its type approval in the European Union. The Roding Roadster was used as reference throughout this research. Based on the legislation for type approval within the European Union,...

Innovative material solutions for economical composite bridges with large spans and constrained slenderness

FiberCore Europe is a Dutch company, specialized in the design and manufacturing of composite, load-bearing structures for architecture and infrastructure. The company’s main focus is on bridges and lock gates made from glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP). The price for currently produced GFRP bridges longer than approximately 26 meter is...

A simplified method for the determination of damage arrest capabilities in stiffened structures

The recent application of Glass Reinforced Aluminium (Glare) in the Airbus A380 has proven to be a suitable candidate to replace metal structures. The reduction in weight and increased performance results in lower emissions and cost reduction. Therefore research has been performed at the Delft University of Technology, dedicated to the residual...

Predicting Onset of Damage in Special Class of Laminates under Tension

In design with composite materials, the capability of tailoring the properties of the structure with respect to the specific load requirements in each direction, allowed by their anisotropic nature, is coupled with the development of interlaminar stresses transferred through the thickness. Specifically, at the free edge of the laminate, due to...

Stress Analysis and Failure Prediction for Orthotropic Plates with Holes

To allow structural designs with lower mass, it is necessary to have access to accurate failure prediction theories for composite plates with holes subjected to arbitrary loading conditions. For design purposes, however, the most accurate failure theories require a considerable amount of computational resources which is often not available....