Reduced cost materials and process for lightweight automotive structures

这个项目旨在证明一种新的材料组合的概念，即亚麻夹层结构，以及在以前的创新项目下开发的新制造工艺，以生产坚固、轻便和低成本的汽车车身结构和外部板。通过独特的生产方法，该项目将调查生产工艺的局限性及其对结构部件设计的影响。同时，将对该工艺进行测试，看看它如何能够提供可接受的A级表面，而不需要进一步的抛光工艺。该工艺提供了低资本投资的生产工具，并支持低成本车辆的生产以及使用单面模制面板的任何产品。一旦工艺进行了调整，该项目将研究采用碳纤维外壳的夹层结构中的亚麻增强树脂，以提供弹性和抗冲击性，并将亚麻封装以防止受潮。这将侧重于获得适当的承载能力、承受反复道路负载输入的弹性和抗冲击能力。在试验之后，该项目将创建和测试汽车车身结构，将结果作为一个完整的装配进行测试。这将带来新的业务机会--最初与Nedra合作开发其超低重量电动汽车系列，随后在寻求降低成本和重量的许多汽车应用中使用Nedra。“

"This project aims to prove both the concept of a new material combination, flax based sandwich construction, and a new manufacturing process developed under a previous Innovate project, to produce strong, lightweight and low cost automotive body structures and exterior panels.Through the unique production method the project will investigate the limitations of the production process and the consequent impact on the design of structural components. At the same time the process will be tested to see how it can deliver acceptable A class surfaces that do not require further finishing processes. The process delivers low-capital investment production tooling and supports the production of low cost vehicles as well as any product using single side moulded panels.Once the process has been tuned, the project will look at flax reinforced resins in a sandwich construction with carbon fibre skins to provide resilience and impact resistance and also to encapsulate the flax to protect it from moisture. This will focus on achieving suitable strengths to carry loads, resilience to withstand repeated road load inputs and resistance to impacts.Following the experimentation, the project will create and automotive body structure to test the results as a complete assembly.This will lead to a new business with new business opportunities -- initially with Nedra on it's ultra-low weight electric vehicle family and subsequently in many automotive applications that seek reductions in cost and weight."