Interview with Dr Kia, General Motors

28 June 2011

Interview with Dr Hamid Kia, Lab Group Manager - Polymer Composites at General Motors R&D Center and speaker at GOCarbonFiber2011:

Q: Briefly describe your experience with composites and the scope of your role within GM R&D.

I have been working on composites for the past three decades and currently leading a team of experts practically covering all automotive topics related to polymers and composites.

Q: Composites have been talked about in automotive applications for years, ever since the first glass fiber composite cars in the 60s and 70s but never really took off on mass-scale. What's different now?

As the cost of energy increases it becomes more and more imperative for vehicles to become fuel efficient. One important approach to fuel efficiency is through mass reduction. Composites may enable needed mass reduction without compromise in performance.

Q: Are there crash-test and safety issues with using carbon fiber structures in automotive applications?

Cars are always designed to meet and surpass safety requirements as well as customer satisfaction. Therefore, when carbon fiber composite components are used in vehicles they are engineered to deliver the required performance.

Q: What are the tangible benefits of replacing traditional materials with carbon composites?

In addition to mass savings there are other potential benefits such as enhanced styling, fast to market, parts consolidation, and lower tooling cost which is very important for low volume vehicles.

Q: Recycling is a major issue for automotive manufacturers when designing vehicles - how do carbon fiber composites fit within the recycling regime at GM?

It has been demonstrated that carbon fiber composites can be recycled; however, logistics are a challenge.

Q: Can you see a future with a 100% composite vehicle, or will there always be a combination of materials?

In fact the best strategy is the mixed material approach to enable the right material for the right application. Therefore, the optimum solution would be a vehicle engineered with a variety of materials to deliver the best performance.

Q: We are looking forward to hearing your presentation at the conference - what do you hope to gain from your participation?

It would be good to hear from my peers what their thoughts are for reducing the overall cost of manufacturing carbon fiber composite components while improving performance.

You can hear Dr. Hamid Kia presentation on the topic of overcoming barriers to mainstream carbon fiber usage at the 14th annual GOCarbonFiber conference.