Dr. Omar Faruk will provide critical reviews and the latest research results of polymer composites materials, focusing on various lightweight and sustainable materials in automotive applications. He will discuss also the current applications and future trends of lightweight plastic composite materials in the automotive area.
The selection of materials used to make an automobile is an important driver of its sustainability across all life cycle stages and throughout its value chain. In addition, selection of material can influence the safety, fuel economy, and performance of the vehicle. Sustainability of material depends on a number of factors, including its origin (virgin, renewable, or recycled), the natural and human resources and manufacturing methods used to process it, the emissions produced throughout its life cycle, and its application.
Automotive manufacturers are required to decrease CO2 emissions and increase fuel economy while assuring driver comfort and safety. There has been rapid development in the application of lightweight and sustainable materials in the automotive industry to help meet these criteria and plastic composites are strong enough to replace metal in automotive. Carbon fiber reinforced plastic composites are of particular interest to automotive manufacturers because of their light weighting options for heavier body parts. Recent trends of implementing the higher content of renewable and recycled plastic composite materials in automotive industries are driven by the sustainability of their vehicles. In addition, lightweighting has become one of the most important aspects to consider in the design and manufacture of modern vehicles, while electric vehicles require a different approach to design and build. All these factors have a significant influence on materials selection and usage.
Bio-Sketch
Dr. Omar Faruk works at Powertrain Engineering Research & Development Centre of Ford Motor Company, Canada. He also acts as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto. He completed his B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry at the University of Chittagong, Bangladesh. With a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) scholarship, he joined at University of Kassel, Germany and he achieved his PhD in Mechanical Engineering. He was previously Visiting Research Associate at Michigan State University, USA. He has more than 85 publications to his credit, including 12 book chapters that have been published in international journals and conferences. He also edited 3 books: Lightweight and Sustainable Materials for Automotive Applications, Biofiber Reinforcement in Composite Materials, and Lignin in Polymer Composites, published by CRC press, Woodhead Publishing Ltd, and Elsevier Ltd respectively. In addition, he is an invited reviewer for 71 international reputed journals, government research proposals, and book proposals.