Carbon Fiber Reinforced Composite Materials for Self-supporting Subway Train Cab

Abstract

In order to meet the requirement of lightweight, the design of the subway self-supporting composite subway cab is highly desired. Here we designed and developed carbon fiber reinforced composite sheets with high strength and moduli to replace the aluminum alloy used in the traditional subway cab. The tensile, compression, bending, interlaminar shear properties, and high speed impact performance of composite sheets were investigated. The results showed that the composite sheets had good mechanical properties comparable to traditional aluminum sheets, while reducing the weight of the subway cab by more than 30%. This composite is expected to be a good promising material to make the new generation of subway cab.