The long awaited successor to the Murcielago, the Aventador LP700-4, has recently been unveiled at the 2011 Geneva Auto Show. It is now gaining widespread recognition as an extremely important model, being the first flagship from Automobili Lamborghini SpA to feature a production carbon fibre chassis, made using an Araldite resin system for Resin Transfer Molding (RTM).
Automobili Lamborghini SpA has been working with carbon fibre composites for 30 years; indeed the Italian auto-maker was responsible for the first carbon fibre component on a production car and the first carbon fibre tub on a road car. Composites were also used to produce all of the body panels and several portions of the Murcielago’s spaceframe structure, when it was in production between 2002 and 2010.
In order to meet increasingly stringent environmental regulations, Lamborghini’s corporate strategy is now directed at increasing the power-to-weight ratios of its cars, reducing the overall weight and thereby reducing vehicle emissions.
While traditional composites used in the luxury sports car industry have typically utilized aerospace-derived prepreg materials for autoclave cure, out-of-autoclave processes are now believed to provide unparalleled efficiencies in terms of cost and production rate, while leaving performance and quality unaffected. Among these processes, Lamborghini is focusing on liquid resin processes (VaRTM and RTM), oven-cure prepregs, preforming technologies (braiding, non-crimp fabrics and thermoforming), and advanced compression molding.
The first project to come out of the company’s new corporate strategy is the Aventador LP700-4’s carbon composite chassis. Designed, developed and manufactured at Lamborghini’s headquarters at Sant’Agata Bolognese, where all the bull signed cars are manufactured, this carbon chassis is also expected to be built into other Lamborghinis in the future.
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