Chevrolet Corvette

Wet System Compression M olding. Wet system compression molding was the first high volume method for manufacturing reinforced plastic parts, in such appHcations as the Chevrolet Corvette, industrial trays, tote boxes, luggage, refrigerator liners, and other commercial appHcations. 

As the war drew to a close, Owens-Corning began to plan for peacetime uses of its fiberglass products. In 1946, it introduced fiberglass-reinforced fishing rods, serving trays, acoustical tiles, and pleasure boats. And in 1953, it announced production of the first commercial automobile, the Chevrolet Corvette, with a body made entirely of polymer matrix composite, a fiberglass reinforced plastic. 

The Chevrolet Corvette was one of the first major applications of RPs in the automotive field (USA 1953). The body was made of short E-glass fibers with TS-polyester RP molded largely by the low-pressure hand lay-up and matched die molding (Chapter 5). 

Its makers continue to make improvements on how best to produce it that includes doing more with the tooling and finishes. For the sixth-generation Chevrolet Corvette, this is debuting at the 2004 North American International Auto Show in Detroit that means tweaking the... 

SMC is very well established in the industry. With annual production varying from 20000 to 50000, the Chevrolet Corvette has had its body constructed from SMC panels since the mid-1960s, replacing the more primitive hand lay-up variants employed in the original 1953 model. Figure 2.6 illustrates the 1989 version, with SMC panels. 

Chevrolet Corvette, with SMC panels (courtesy GE Plastics). 

Glass fibre panels achieved their first commercial success with the Chevrolet Corvette in 1953. This car was designed with unsupported glass fibre reinforced polyester panels on a steel ladder chassis. With only very few modifications, it has survived ever since, with production levels usually exceeding 20000 per year. SMC panels have long since replaced the primitive hand lay-up system (see Fig. 2.6). The accumulated production total passed the one million mark in 1992. 

SMC exterior body panels have been used on Chevrolet Corvette for deeades, and thermosetting plastics exterior panels were promoted by tbe classic picture of Henry Ford striking a hammer on the composite trunk of an early Ford model. Today, horizontal panels, hoods (bonnets), and trunk lids are molded from high-modulus SMC, and RV panels with high contoured, styled bodies are compression molded from SMC. Three characteristics distinguish SMC exterior hody panels at this time. 

Arising from this hot moulding system of reinforced plastics a series of developments have taken place over the last fifteen years on larger parts. Initially preforms or shaped mats were produced (Fig. 5), and these preforms were loaded on to large compression presses with the resin slurry poured on to the preform at the press. This technique has been widely used particularly in the United States and probably the best known example is the Chevrolet Corvette car body. 

Fig. 7 Example of UPER used in SMC hood SMC hood on Chevrolet Corvette.

Consider the evolution of the Chevrolet Corvette s body. What has been the evolution Where there any other cars that either preceded or were concurrent with the Corvette body development ... 

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