Investigation of material and manufacturing process to develop high pedestrian safety composite bonnet

Cost reduction, light weighting, quality and safety are the basis for all design and development of automobile component manufacturing. Low cost with high quality components can be produced by proper material selection, material cost, production volume, manufacturing process. This paper investigates the existing metallic bonnet with a new low cost and light weight composite bonnet. Fibers such as glass and jute along with matrixes of polyester and epoxy resin are selected for part fabrication. Using reverse engineering process design is extracted from original metallic bonnet and is redesigned for FRP application. Hand lay-up and VARTM manufacturing process are compared to fabricate FRP bonnet. Important factors involve in bonnet under real time damages are impact of child head-form during accident is analyzed as per Euro-NCAP standard. From the result VARTM based glass/polyester composite is found to be a better candidate for fabrication.