The objective for this master’s thesis was to investigate the possibility to use Carbon Fiber Sheet Moulding Compound in a structural part of the car body. For this project a sill reinforcement was chosen as the structural part. The sill was supposed to have a reduction in weight while maintained or increased performance when comparing to an extruded aluminum sill, used as reference.

The product development process was iterative and used a simulation driven approach. The concepts were simulated on a component level as a first evaluation, where the weight reduction and absorbed energy was calculated. The three best performing concepts were later simulated using a full car model as a final evaluation, where the intrusion by the inner doorframe was examined during a full car side pole impact simulation. 

The results show that a reduction in weight is possible to attain when using CF-SMC but at the cost of absorbed energy and intrusion. The final design had a weight reduction of 22.3 %, a decrease in absorbed energy by 12.8% and an increase of intrusion by 30 mm. None of the concepts performed satisfactory with regard to performance but a final design suggestion was still made as a platform for future work.