From aviation to automotive – a study on material selection and its implication on cost and weight efficient structural composite and sandwich designs

Abstract The design of a composite material structure is often challenging as it is driven by the trade-off between lightweight performance and production costs. In this paper, the boundaries of this design trade-off and its implications on material selection, geometrical design and manufacturability are analysed for a number of design strategies and composite material systems. The analysis is founded on a methodology that couples weight-optimization and technical cost modelling through an application-bound design cost. Each design strategy is evaluated for