A Qualitative Study To Identify The Need And Requirements On Further Development Of Design Guidelines For Fibre-Reinforced Composites

This paper describes the methodological approach and results of a qualitative study used to identify the needs and requirements on the further development of design guidelines for fibre-reinforced polymers. To this purpose the method of the semi-structured interview was chosen. A total of 16 industry representatives from different countries, industries and departments took part in the interview study. The results have shown that the necessary information in design guidelines depends very much on the requirements placed on the product, the field of activity of participants and their experience level as well as the industry sector. Apart from this the requirements for desirable content to be found in design guidelines was much the same in North America as in Germany. Furthermore, the results have shown that the current solutions available these days to support the design engineers during the product development with fibre composite materials are no longer contemporary. There is a need to rethink the classical concept of design guidelines and to adapt these to the requirements of the industry.