Component Testing of Fiber Reinforced Composite Transmission Cross Beams

Transmission cross members (TCM) are the direct link to the engine-gear transmission-mount and exposed to a complex combination of loads during the service operation in various cars. Recently, our research group has developed novel polymeric composite transmission cross members. The first design is based on injection molded short carbon fiber composites (SFRP), the second design uses carbon fiber prepreg chips molded in a single-stage compression process (also termed as C-SMC). A test set-up was developed and implemented in a servohydraulic test system for testing of these components under service near loading conditions. In addition to the direct force and global displacement measurement, both optical and contact strain measurement by strain gages was applied. First, monotonic loading was applied and both the stiffness of the various components and the limit load was determined. Furthermore, the components were exposed to cyclic loading with constant frequency and the dynamic response was measured.