A technical and economic analysis of structural composite use in automotive body-in-white applications

Alternative materials technologies promise increased design flexibility, improved damage resistance and lighter weight (among others) over the steel designs that are currently in production. To understand why such features are desirable and why a composite intensive vehicle may become an attractive platform for an automaker to consider, the state of the automobile industry must be analyzed. There are three factors driving the research and development efforts of the industry: competition, government legislation and consumer forces.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

1998

Author dc:creator

• Kang, Paul J. (Paul Ji Hwan), 1974-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Dr. Joel P. Clark.

• Materials Science and Engineering

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/16461

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/16461