Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPTResearch Project "fabulous"
More efficient engines save energy through lightweight materials
As a low-emission drive technology, electromobility is becoming more and more important for a sustainable society. It is vital to optimize the production of electric engines at the same time in order to improve product quality and environmental performance. In the "fabulous" research project, the intention was to introduce new lightweight materials to help reduce the weight of electric engines. The use of these new materials would boost the efficiency of the engines and reduce pollutant emissions from mobility. However, conventional thermoplastic fiber-reinforced plastics that have the required material properties were too cost-intensive for use in large-scale industrial production. The partners in the project were, therefore, developing new materials for the manufacture of rotor components that are more economical and of suitable quality for automotive production.
New fiber composite plastics for durable lightweight components
The "fabulous" project aimed to demonstrate that the efficiency of electric drives could be improved by using new materials for the rotor of an electric motor. Rotor components were exposed to high levels of stress from temperature and chemicals such as oils and must therefore had high resistance to these media. To this end, the project partners were developing a new plastic composition based on aliphatic and partially aromatic polyamides (PPA). This so-called PPA compound had high temperature and media resistance and served as a matrix material for fiber-reinforced unidirectional (UD) tapes to be developed in the course of the project. These could subsequently be used for the manufacture of components to replace the previous heavy-weight metallic components either partially or completely. The UD tapes were processed into "tailored composite blanks" in an automated tape laying process. These tape lay-ups were further processed in shaping and joining processes, such as overmolding, which had also been being developed in the project, to form a hybrid component made of fiber-reinforced plastic with purely thermoplastic structures and metallic components. The joining process with the metallic components took place in parallel with the main production time. Quality assurance was conducted via sensor-based process monitoring, which ensured process robustness and reduced the reject rate.
Manufacturing technology for hybrid components
The process chain developed in the project covered all manufacturing steps from tape production to the final electric engine. As part of this process, the Fraunhofer IPT was networking the process and quality data of this process chain. When data was fed back into the individual sub-processes, these could be analyzed in the context of the overall process chain, enabling the sub-processes to be coordinated with each other. This could improve product quality, increased process robustness and reduced the reject rate. In addition, the Fraunhofer IPT was further developing its own system and process technology so that the new UD tapes could be processed and joined to metallic components. Both the processes for working with the new fiber composite plastics and the automated process for joining the metallic components with the tape layers would later serve as the basis for further work in the field of hybrid material combinations that could be used for functionalized components.
Consortium
- AKRO-PLASTIC GmbH, Niederzissen
- CirComp GmbH (consortium leader), Kaiserslautern, Germany
- FEV Europe GmbH, Aachen
- FKT Formenbau und Kunststofftechnik GmbH, Triptis
- Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT, Aachen
- Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability LBF, Darmstadt
- Gubesch Thermoforming GmbH, Wilhelmsdorf
- M.TEC ENGINEERING GmbH, Herzogenrath
- SURAGUS GmbH, Dresden
Function-integrated drive components for electromobility
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With the click on the play button an external video from www.youtube.com is loaded and started. Your data is possible transferred and stored to third party. Do not start the video if you disagree. Find more about the youtube privacy statement under the following link: https://policies.google.com/privacyElectric drive components must be both lightweight and durable. Combining these two properties at a high level of quality requires new materials and processing techniques. In our research project "fabulous", we developed unique processes for manufacturing parts out of innovative partiality aromatic aramide (PPA) UD-tapes - from tape production to the final electric motor. The new PPA tape materials exhibit extremely high temperature and media resistance and offer a high potential for the manufacturing of high-performance function-integrated parts ideally suitable for electric drive train applications.