Osmaniye Korkut Ata Üniversitesi Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü Dergisi (Online), vol.7, no.2, pp.751-766, 2024 (Peer-Reviewed Journal)
As efforts to reduce vehicle weight in today's vehicles accelerate, efforts to find new types of materials that can replace traditional materials have accelerated. In this study, carbon fiber was used as a reinforcement element together with glass fiber for lightening in vehicle bumpers. While vinyl ester and polyester were chosen as the matrix material for the piece to be produced, production was made by the hand lay-up method. The produced samples were first subjected to tensile test and their mechanical values were determined. The mechanical test results were introduced to the ANSYS program, and separate analyzes were made for the materials produced on the same bumper design and the results were compared. According to the results of the analysis, there was 2.13 times decrease in total deformations in glass fiber/carbon fiber/Vinyl ester hybrid composites compared to glass fiber/vinyl ester homogeneous composites. In terms of equivalent stresses, 8% reduction was achieved in the carbon fiber /glass fiber/Vinyl ester hybrid composite compared to the carbon/Vinyl ester homogeneous composite. It was concluded that the choice of reinforcement and matrix is important for creating bumper material and improving the mechanical values of the bumper