JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #91 - August/September 2014 - 36

natural fibres

"Tabwood": a local bio-composite
for the automotive industry

Dr. Takuya Nishimura
Group Manager
New Business Development Division
Toyota Auto Body Co., Ltd.

olypropylene is widely used in the
automotive industry. Talc and glass
fibre are the conventional fillers used
to reinforce polypropylene in components
subjected to demanding environments. For
the development of automotive components, reducing the weight of materials and
components and improving their mechanical properties are very important issues [1].
Bio-composites have been used in automotive applications by many car makers
for environmental reasons. Natural fibre
composites have been employed for many
years in car components such as door trims
and seat cushions, among others. In 1992,
DaimlerChrysler (Mercedes Benz) and
the Brazilian non-governmental organization (NGO) Poverty and Environment
in Amazonia Research and Development
(POEMA) set up a project to develop coconut fibre for seat cushions and head rests
for the Benz A-class in the Brazilian market.
This project not only used natural fibres for
car components, but it also established a
sustainable relationship of equal partnership
between DaimlerChrysler and a small village in the Amazon region of Brazil [2].
Another car manufacturer, Ford, focused on

Strength, stiffness and heat resistance are characteristics of
natural fibre in common with conventional fillers such as talc
and glass fibre but an advantage of natural fibre is lightness.
TABWD® (Toyota Auto Body WooD) substitutes natural fibre for
conventional fillers in order to reduce the weight of materials
and components. In Japan, the main natural fibre resource is
wood and in TABWD® wood flour is used as filler for the fibre
reinforced polymer.

wheat, which is grown all over the world.
Wheat straw residues are currently utilized
for bedding for domestic animals. The first
Ford application for natural fibre-based
plastics containing 20% wheat straw as a
bio-filler was the third-row interior storage
bins for the 2010 Ford Flex [3]. This practical automotive application of a renewable
resource helps reduce the utilization of
fossil fuels and, more importantly, wheat
straw is not a food resource. Both DaimlerChrysler and Ford have demonstrated
the value of using bio-composites, which
reduce the consumption of fossil resources
and promote sustainable social development.
Since the 1950s, Japan has planted Japanese
cedar and Japanese cypress to remedy
the lack of timber construction materials.
However, as time has passed, imported
wood resources have become cheaper and
domestic personnel expenses higher, so that
Japanese cedar and cypress have lost their
market. The present situation is worse because there are many mature tree resources
with little infrastructure in the form of forest
roads for cutting and transporting trees to
the highway. Planted forestry needs to be
maintained or the natural landscape will be
degraded.

36 jec composites magazine / No91 August - September 2014

The quality of these wood resources is quite
low because the diameter of logs is small
and many knots are present due to the lack
of thinning. Many Japanese researchers are
trying to develop applications for domestic
trees [4]. Once people start using them,
forestry in Japan will become healthy.
This article focuses on the use of Japanese
domestic wood resources in the automotive
industry for the manufacture of car components. This enables the use of local materials
for global car components, allowing sustainable mass production. A polypropylene material for injection moulding reinforced with
wood flour from Japanese domestic wood
resources was developed. The properties of
this material, called TABWD® (pronounced
"tabwood"), are described in this paper.

Experimental
Test specimens
Natural fibres are classified as bast (stem)
fibre, leaf fibre or wood fibre. In this paper,
kenaf (Hibiscus Cannabinus) as a bast fibre,
curaua (Ananas Ersectifolius) as a leaf fibre
and Japanese cedar as a wood fibre were
selected to reinforce polypropylene. These
fibres were cut or milled to the sizes shown
in Table 1.
An optical microscope was used to measure
the diameter and length of 50 samples of

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #91 - August/September 2014

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