A Study on Optimizing the Mechanical Properties of Glass Fiber-Reinforced Polypropylene for Automotive Parts

Many currently produced plastic automotive parts use glass fiber reinforced plastic for enhanced strength and reduced vehicle weight. Apart from glass fiber, there are many manufacturing process factors concerning the production of the glass fiber reinforced plastic parts and their characteristics. This paper employed Taguchi's method, a correlation analysis, and an axiomatic design to study the optimizing process for glass fiber-reinforced plastic parts. The major factors affecting the characteristics of the plastic-based automotive parts were determined, and the optimal conditions for the parts were deduced.