Abstract: The lightweight of vehicle is one of the future development directions of railway vehicles. Carbon fiber composite material is the preferred material for the lightweight design of vehicle. This paper introduces a lightweight design of the whole carbon fiber composite vehicle, including the structure design and connection design of the whole vehicle. The strength, stiffness and modal of the composite vehicle structure were checked by the finite element method. Furthermore, the mechanical properties of carbon fiber composites were evaluated. According to the thought of integrated forming and modularization, the experimental part of composite vehicle was prepared by Vacuum Infusion Process under the environment of oven, which verified the feasibility of the structural design and manufacturing technology of vehicle. The results show that the design of composite materials vehicle should consider the material characteristics, vehicle structure and mode comprehensively, reduce the number of parts and connections, and realize the integration of vehicle forming. The carbon fiber composite material can greatly reduce the weight of vehicle in the manufacturing. Under the premise of meeting the standards of strength, stiffness and mode of the vehicle, the all-carbon fiber composite vehicle can reduce the weight by 42% compared with the traditional aluminum alloy vehicle.

Key words: railway vehicle, lightweight, carbon fiber composite materials, structural design, finite element analysis