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Better design, lower emissions, reduced costs: the composite miracle
As a leading supplier of high-performance composite materials,
Reaching these objectives requires increasing volumes and demonstrating the possibilities offered by industrialisation. 'Composite parts for the automotive industry are still a relatively small market,' says
To prove the validity of these new manufacturing processes,
In 2017, FLAVA was awarded a multi-million-pound grant by the
Solvay-QUOTE-DAVE
A game-changer for grocery deliveries
A few years down the road, the result of this multi-partner collaboration is visible in the streets of
All this was made possible by working on the chemistry of composites: accelerating their polymerisation means they can be manipulated by robots, which means they can be mass produced, which in turn means their incorporation in vehicles such as everyday use delivery vans becomes commercially viable - with many benefits to reap: 'Composite materials provided by
Composite materials
What's more, with far superior corrosion and impact resistance, composite materials have a lifetime that is nearly double that of metal: parts can last up to ten years instead of five on average.
Miles to go for composite manufacturing
And this is just the beginning. Home delivery of online purchases is a rapidly expanding market, generating substantial demand growth, with specific technical requirements such as modularity and thermal resistance, as vans such as these have to be able to transport goods at sub-zero, refrigerated and ambient temperatures simultaneously.
Composite parts are capable of meeting all these requirements, and more: in addition to making vehicles lighter, the improved design flexibility they provide means each one of Asda's new delivery vans can transport up to 30% more merchandise. 'Stunning payload improvement will help reduce trips, miles and hours on the road,' confirms Sean in
Penso_Robot_Line
Penso robot line
Even the sky isn't the limit for composites
With Asda's fleet of vans,
Needless to say, the intensive use of composites is bound to rapidly expand beyond delivery vans. 'Now that this new market is in the process of being inaugurated, our interest is to transpose these manufacturing processes to other markets such as large-scale car production and the aerospace industry,' says Gerald. Technological partnerships with some of the major players in these industries have already been signed, and visits to the Heanor pilot unit by interested customers started early 2020.
A traditionally conservative industry where innovations are implemented slowly, the aerospace sector is increasingly looking at technological developments in the faster-moving automotive industry. 'The manufacturing processes and chemistries we have developed for this project have demonstrated their validity,' sums up Gerald. 'They are now ready to be widely deployed.' Composite parts for vehicles of all sorts just moved into the fast lane.
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