Design and manufacturing of automobile hood using natural composite structure.

Recently, there has been a growing interest in the use of naturally sourced fibers for use in composites design and manufacture. In this work, a structural design on automobile hood using natural flax fiber composite was performed. The structural design results of flax/vinyl ester composite hood were compared with the design results of metal hood structure. Through the structural analyses using commercial FEM software, it is confirmed that the designed automobile hood using natural composite is reasonable for structural safety, stability and weight. Through the structural test, it is confirmed that the designed hood structure is acceptable for structural safety and stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]