The Effect of Adding Silica Elements from Rice Husk Ash on the Mechanical Characteristics of CFRP for Fairing Automotive Vehicle

CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforce Polymers) is an alternative automotive component material that has the advantage of being lighter than other materials, making it an option as a substitute for metal.Apart from mechanical strength, lightness, and ease of form, CFRP is also expected to have a high safety value.Research on the mechanical characteristics resulting from efforts to increase the thermal resistance of CFRP will be discussed in this article.Using the experiments method was made CFRP using the hand lay-up (CFRP-HLU) method.By paying attention to the phenomenon caused by the addition of silica gel from rice husk ash, the workpiece is made with 4 variations of silica composition.From this research, the tensile strength and hardness of the material tend to decrease significantly with increasing silica on the matrix composition in CFRP.