Carbon Fibre Floor

The floor gets bonded to the chassis and supports the brake pedal tray as well as the throttle pedal tray. For this reason it should support a large load and its structural integrity is quite notable. As well, because it covers a large portion of the car, minimizing its weight while maximizing its strength is ideal. Therefore a carbon fibre reinforced polymer sandwich panel is used to make the floor. The carbon fibre mesh has threads in 45 degree angle that cross one another providing strength in multiple directions. Two plies are used on each side of the foam for a total of 0.1 in thickness to provide strength. A 1in foam is used to provide enough thickness for the mounting bolts to engage with. The foam is structural and supplied by Rohacell.

In the hand-layup process, the vacuum bag for bagging and for squeegeeing the resin + hardener mixture into the carbon fibre sheet was cut with respect to the dimensions derived from the 2D drawing of the floor made in SolidWorks. The breather, peel ply, and carbon sheet were cut according to the same dimensions. The resin and hardener mixture (epoxy) with a 1:1 carbon weight: epoxy weight was used. Additionally 1/3 of the carbon weight worth of epoxy was used to bond the carbon fibre sheets to the foam while saturated. The layers were then cut and put on the polished aluminum surface. After two plies of saturated carbon fibre, the foam was placed, followed by another two plies. Then the layup was bagged and vacuumed for 24 hours to become the final piece which was then sent to waterjet for the holes and exact outline shape to be cut.