The Tucana project is a four-year programme to make the UK a world leader in low-carbon technology, helping prevent 4.5 million tonnes of CO2 emissions between 2023 and 2032 by accelerating mainstream use of electric vehicles and making vehicles lighter to both decrease tailpipe emissions and reduce the energy consumption of electrified powertrains.

The research will allow Jaguar Land Rover to develop lightweight vehicle and powertrain structures by replacing aluminium and steel with composites capable of handling the increased torque generated by high-performance batteries while improving efficiency and reducing CO2 impact.

The development of new lightweight body structures to complement the latest zero-emissions powertrains will be key as the electrification of our vehicle range continues.

Jaguar Land Rover aims to increase vehicle stiffness by 30 per cent, cut weight by 35kg and further refine the crash safety structure through the strategic use of tailored composites, such as carbon fibre. Reducing the vehicle body weight will allow the fitting of larger batteries with increased range – without impacting CO2 emissions.

Advanced composites offer significant reductions in vehicle weight, and by 2022, Jaguar Land Rover expects to have developed a fleet of prototype Tucana test vehicles.

The consortium, led by Jaguar Land Rover, brings together world-leading academic and industry partners including the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), Expert Tooling & Automation, Broetje-Automation UK, Toray International UK, CCP Gransden and The Centre for Modelling & Simulation (CFMS).

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Led by Jinwen Zhang, a professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, researchers developed a recyclable material that is as strong as commonly used carbon fibre composites and can also be broken down in very hot water within a pressure vessel. The new material could be easily substituted into current manufacturing processes. The research team, including scientists from the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, report on their work in the journal, Macromolecular Rapid Communications.

Carbon fibre reinforced composites are increasingly popular in many industries because they are light and strong. They serve as an energy-saving, lighter alternative to metals, especially in the aviation and automotive industries. They are, however, difficult to break down or recycle, and disposing of them has become of increasing concern. Early versions of modern wind turbines made of composites from the 1990s, for instance, are now reaching the end of their lifetimes, creating a significant challenge for disposal.

While thermoplastics, the type of plastic used in milk bottles, can be melted and easily re-used, the carbon fibre composites are made from thermosets. These types of plastics are cured and can’t easily be undone and returned to their original materials.

Zhang’s team developed a composite material that uses an epoxy vitrimer as an alternative to the traditional epoxy resin. The material is hard and durable like an epoxy thermoset but can also show self-healing and malleable properties at high temperatures like a thermoplastic.

When they used their epoxy vitrimer in the composite material, they were able to degrade their material in pressurised, distilled water beginning at 160 degrees Celsius, dissolving it into valuable carbon fibre and other compounds, which can then be re-used. The recycled carbon fibre was comparable in strength to brand new carbon fibre. When they raised the temperature to 180 degrees, the material completely dissolved. The epoxy vitrimer that they developed could easily be substituted into the manufacturing process.

There is no need to change the chemistry of the process – it is just a slight modification of using the epoxy vitrimer instead of traditional epoxy. The technology is simply and readily applicable.

While the new recyclable material could be easily adopted by manufacturers, Zhang is also continuing work to improve the recycling of composites that are currently in the market. In recent years, he developed an environmentally friendly method to break down the material in a liquid or ethanol medium. Earlier this year, he received a $1.2 million Department of Energy grant for the up-cycling of the composites waste.

The research was supported through grants from the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy and the Joint Center for Aerospace Technology Innovation.

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Wind blades containing carbon fibre weigh 25% less than ones made from traditional fibreglass materials. That means carbon fibre blades could be longer than fibreglass ones and, therefore, capture more energy in locations with low wind. A switch to carbon fibre could also extend blade lifetime because carbon fibre materials have a high fatigue resistance, said Brandon Ennis, a wind energy researcher at Sandia Labs and the principal investigator for the project.

The project is funded by DOE’s Wind Energy Technologies Office in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Partners on the project include Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Montana State University.

Of all the companies producing wind turbines, only one uses carbon fibre materials extensively in their blade designs. Wind turbine blades are the largest single-piece composite structures in the world, and the wind industry could represent the largest market for carbon fibre materials by weight if a material that competed on a cost-value basis to fibreglass reinforced composites was commercially available, said Ennis.

Cost is the main consideration during component design in the wind industry, yet turbine manufacturers also have to build blades that withstand the compressive and fatigue loads that blade experience as they rotate for up to 30 years.

Ennis and his colleagues wondered if a novel low-cost carbon fibre developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory could meet performance needs while also bringing cost benefits for the wind industry. This material starts with a widely available precursor from the textile industry that contains thick bundles of acrylic fibres. The manufacturing process, which heats the fibres to convert them to carbon, is followed by an intermediate step that pulls the carbon fibre into planks. The plank-making pultrusion process creates carbon fibre with high performance and reliability needed for blade manufacturing and also allows for high production capacity.

When the research team studied this low-cost carbon fibre, they discovered it performed better than current commercial materials in terms of cost-specific properties of most interest to the wind industry.

ORNL provided developmental samples of carbon fibre from its Carbon Fiber Technology Facility and composites made from this material as well as similar composites made from commercially available carbon fibre for comparison.

Colleagues at Montana State University measured the mechanical properties of the novel carbon fibre versus commercially available carbon fibre and standard fibreglass composites. Then Ennis combined these measurements with cost modelling results from ORNL. He used those data in a blade design analysis to assess the system impact of using the novel carbon fibre, instead of standard carbon fibre or fibreglass, as the main structural support in a wind blade. The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Wind Energy Technologies Office.

Ennis and his colleagues found that the new carbon fibre material had 56% more compressive strength per dollar than commercially available carbon fibre, which is the industry baseline. Typically, manufacturers accommodate a lower compressive strength by using more material to make a component, which then increases costs. Considering the higher compressive strength per cost of the novel carbon fibre, Ennis’ calculations predicted about a 40% savings in material costs for a spar cap, which is the main structural component of a wind turbine blade, made from the new carbon fibre compared to commercial carbon fibre.

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While the benefits of carbon fibre have long been known, production costs can be up to 10 times more than that of traditional materials, and difficulty in shaping CFRP parts has hampered the mass production of automotive components made from the material.

Nissan says it has found a new approach to the existing production method known as compression resin transfer moulding. The existing method involves forming carbon fibre into the right shape and setting it in a die with a slight gap between the upper die and the carbon fibres. Resin is then injected into the fibre and left to harden.

Nissan’s engineers developed techniques to accurately simulate the permeability of the resin in carbon fibre while visualising resin flow behaviour in a die using an in-die temperature sensor and a transparent die. The result of the successful simulation was a high-quality component with a shorter development time.

Executive Vice President Hideyuki Sakamoto said in the live presentation on YouTube that the CFRP parts would start being used in mass-produced sport-utility vehicles in four or five years time, thanks to a new casting procedure for the poured resin. The cost savings come from shortening the production time from about three or four hours to just two minutes, Sakamoto said.

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The new architecture, designed specifically to accommodate new hybrid powertrains, has been entirely engineered, developed and produced in-house at McLaren’s £50m Composites Technology Centre in South Yorkshire, opened back in 2018.

The new flexible vehicle architecture utilises new processes and techniques to strip out excess mass, reduce overall vehicle weight, while also further improving safety attributes. It will underpin the next generation of McLaren hybrid models as the supercar company enters its second decade of series vehicle production.

Hundreds of pieces of carbon fibre cloth are cut for every chassis, the shape and orientation of each cut piece is controlled by software to optimise the strength and weight of the finished chassis. Lasers guide the alignment of the cut material into 2D Preforms.

These preforms are then loaded into McLaren’s own resin transfer moulding process where the resin is infused while the parts are clamped together under force. The moulded lightweight chassis is then removed from the press and machined to accept the mounting of multiple components during the vehicles final assembly.

The first new McLaren hybrid supercar to be based on the all-new architecture will launch in 2021.

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This research, valued at US$10 million, will investigate all aspects of coal-derived carbon fibre production – from computational chemistry and pitch processing to the final spinning and heat treatment process of the fibres. The aim is to produce fibres with superior properties at a lower cost than currently available.

Through this effort, ORNL researchers will work to understand the chemistry and processing conditions required to produce different grades of coal-derived carbon fibre. NETL, ORNL, and the university teams will work closely to diversify U.S. coal use in domestic manufacturing while making coal and coal-based products more attractive for export.

Because of competition from low-priced natural gas and incentivised renewable energy, the market for coal in the electric power generation sector is decreasing. However, coal-to-products opportunities can develop new markets for coal, which have the potential to offset this decrease.

For example, the market for carbon fibres is estimated to see an annual growth rate of 12 per cent through 2024, driven largely by increased use in aerospace and defence applications and in light-weighting of vehicle structures. Additional market growth is also possible in other high-volume applications, such as thermal insulation for buildings and materials for construction and infrastructure.

The $10 million that ORNL’s Carbon Fiber Technology Facility will receive comes as a part of $30 million in the fiscal year 2020 Congressional appropriations to support DOE’s Advanced Coal Processing Program. This program supports the development of technologies that can utilise coal for purposes outside the traditional thermal and metallurgical markets.

Of the $10 million funding, $4.5 million will support University of Kentucky research to determine how coal tar pitch, the carbon fibre precursor, can be tailored and optimised for the specific type of desired fibre. Additionally, $80,000 will go to Pennsylvania State University for material characterisation.

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Due to the weight savings made the vehicle’s payload is boosted by almost 50% compared to similar vehicles meaning more goods can be carried per vehicle, per journey. While significant improvements in fuel economy too, thanks to the aerodynamic technologies applied to the design.

The launch is the result of more than 10 years of research by British engineering firm Penso and a £16.3 million investment – half from Penso and half from government matched-funding via the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) and Innovate UK. This has helped to fund the installation of a flexible automated robot assembly line housed in a brand new 50,000 square foot facility.

From the outset, we knew carbon fibre was going to be the solution, but we also knew others had tried this approach previously, and because it was eye-wateringly expensive – partly due to the lengthy and complex production process to manufacture each part – the costs simply hadn’t stacked up.

In order to get the costs down the company constructed the bodies using the same sandwich panel technology they had used to create a press formed composite rail door for the London Underground. By moving away from manufacturing parts in an autoclave, and press forming the panels instead, they could cut the time it takes to construct each part from hours to minutes.

The newly created robot assembly line could create a finished body every 42 minutes, much quicker than the two-weeks a typical manual build takes with carbon fibre composites. The new van bodies have a 10-year lifespan (and structural warranty) and can be moved to a new chassis after 5 years, which makes them compatible with future electric and hybrid vehicles.

With these savings in fuel, labour and operating costs, Penso estimates that a typical supermarket fleet could save up to £6,700 per van, per year. Asda will be putting these vans on the road throughout the country focussing on areas where drivers have increased mileage to reach customers in remote areas such as parts of the East Coast.

This latest move is part of Asda’s commitment to making carbon reduction a priority across the business as it looks to tackle climate change. The retailer has already reduced its energy usage by 20% in stores and uses the same amount of energy as it did in 2005, despite its estate being 200% bigger.

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In a new study, Texas A&M University researchers have used a natural plant product, called cellulose nanocrystals, to pin and coat carbon nanotubes uniformly onto the carbon-fibre composites. The researchers said their prescribed method is quicker than conventional methods and also allows the designing of carbon-fibre composites from the nanoscale.

Composites are built in layers. For example, polymer composites are made of layers of fibre, like carbon fibres or Kevlar, and a polymer matrix. This layered structure is the source of the composites’ weakness. Any damage to the layers causes fractures, a process technically known as delamination.

To increase strength and give carbon-fibre composites other desirable qualities, such as electrical and thermal conductivity, carbon nanotubes are often added. However, the chemical processes used for incorporating the carbon nanotubes into these composites often cause the nanoparticles to clump up, reducing the overall benefit of adding these particles.

“The problem with nanoparticles is similar to what happens when you add coarse coffee powder to milk—the powder agglomerates or sticks to each other,” said Dr Amir Asadi, assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution. “To fully take advantage of the carbon nanotubes, they need to be separated from each other first, and then somehow designed to go to a particular location within the carbon-fibre composite.”

To facilitate the even distribution of carbon nanotubes, Asadi and his team turned to cellulose nanocrystals, a compound easily obtained from recycled wood pulp. These nanocrystals have segments on their molecules that attract water and other segments that get repelled by water. This unique molecular structure offers the ideal solution to construct composites at the nanoscale, said Asadi.

The hydrophobic part of the cellulose nanocrystals binds to the carbon fibres and anchors them onto the polymer matrix. On the other hand, the water-attractive portions of the nanocrystals help in dispersing the carbon fibres evenly, much like how sugar, which is hydrophilic, dissolves in water uniformly rather than clumping and settling to the bottom of a cup.

For their experiments, the researchers used a commercially available carbon-fibre cloth. To this cloth, they added an aqueous solution of cellulose nanocrystals and carbon nanotubes and then applied strong vibration to mix all of the items together. Finally, they left the material to dry and spread resin on it to gradually form the carbon nanotube coated polymer composite.

Upon examining a sample of the composite using electron microscopy, Asadi and his team observed that the cellulose nanocrystals attached to the tips of the carbon nanotubes, orienting the nanotubes in the same direction. They also found that cellulose nanocrystals increased the composite’s resistance to bending by 33% and its inter-laminar strength by 40% based on measuring the mechanical properties of the material under extreme loading.

“In this study, we have taken the approach of designing the composites from the nanoscale using cellulose nanocrystals. This method has allowed us to have more control over the polymer composites’ properties that emerge at the macroscale,” said Asadi. “We think that our technique is a path forward in scaling up the processing of hybrid composites, which will be useful for a variety of industries, including airline and automobile manufacturing.”

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Fibre-reinforced polymer composites have many useful properties, but their big drawback is they are typically complex and expensive to manufacture. In recent years, three-dimensional (3D) printing of composites has been successfully demonstrated using thermoplastic polymers and discontinuous fillers, but the resulting 3D-printed composites often have poor mechanical properties and low service temperature due to the limitations of the constituent properties. Consequently, 3D printing of composites using continuous carbon fibres and thermosetting polymers is expected to offer exceptional mechanical properties and thermal stability as well as featured design flexibility, low cost, reliability, and repeatability. However, no additive manufacturing technique has ever been reported to process continuous carbon fibres and thermosetting polymers for direct 3D printing of the finished composite.

Now, a team of engineers from the University of Delaware has developed a 3D printing technology that enables low-cost, flexible production of items made of fibre-reinforced polymer composites using continuous carbon fibres and thermosetting polymers. Their results were recently published in the journal Matter.

This is believed to be the first time anyone has achieved such 3D printing of continuous carbon fibre and thermosetting composite

Continuous carbon fibres and thermosetting resins are very important to make strong and lightweight composites, and they are widely used in many applications, such as aerospace, automotive, and sports products,” said Kun (Kelvin) Fu, “3D printing could reduce labour and tooling cost, and fabricate composite in a more energy-efficient, rapid, and reliable way with minimum defects.

The team developed an approach called localised in-plane thermal assisted (LITA) 3D printing, which allows the user to control the thickness and degree of curing of liquid polymer that solidifies into the desired shape.

In LITA 3D printing, the researchers carefully manipulate the temperature of the carbon fibers, aiding the flow of liquid polymers into channels between the carbon fibers. Then, the polymers are cured, solidifying into a three-dimensional structure. No post-curing is needed in LITA 3D printing, which could save a large amount of energy compared to the conventionally fabricated composites requiring tens of hours of post-curing.

The team developed a robotic system that includes a unique printing head and automated robot arm. This customized 3D printer allows the group to print a variety of shapes and structures.

LITA 3D printing could provide many industries with a rapid, energy-efficient method to make composite components in a variety of shapes using a variety of combinations of polymers and fibers.

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The 13 partner syndicate – which is a mix of established and young companies, including Belfast Harbour and Bombardier, academia and local public bodies – is the only Northern Irish or maritime recipient of the UK Research and Innovation flagship Strength in Places Fund.

The growing global desire to cut CO2 emissions from all modes of transport has finally begun to drive significant change within the maritime industry.  Under a new international agreement issued by the International Maritime Organisation, the global maritime sector has committed to cutting emissions by at least half, by 2050, however, a number of countries have more ambitious targets. For example, the UK has committed to being carbon neutral by 2050; its Clean Maritime Plan, building on its Maritime 2050 strategy, aims to reduce pollution to improve public health and protect the environment, calling for all new maritime vessels to be designed with zero-emissions capable technologies, from 2025 onwards.

Our concept for an electric hydrofoil propulsion system is totally unique and will enable vessels of the future to operate with up to 90% less energy, and produce zero emissions during operation.

Iain Percy OBE

Artemis Technologies has developed a new approach to maritime design, more in line with aerospace and motorsport, using bespoke simulation and performance prediction tools to develop digital twins in the design process, and utilise new lightweight structures and modern manufacturing techniques.

A hydrofoil is a wing-like appendage under the hull of a vessel. As the vessel increases its speed the hydrofoils lift the hull up and out of the water, greatly reducing wetted area, resulting in an order of magnitude reduction in drag. Over the last two years, Artemis Technologies has been developing a commercial application for this technology, named the eFoiler Propulsion System (eFoiler).

The eFoiler is based on the integration of an ultra-high-density electric Motor Generator Unit into an autonomously controlled carbon fibre hydrofoil. With a minimal increase in wetted surface area and drag, it provides the first viable solution for the early adoption of high-speed zero-emissions maritime transport.

This technology will reduce the drag of a conventional fast ferry or traditional passive ‘V’ hydrofoil, by up to 90%, uniquely making electric propulsion, with high-speed and range, commercially viable.

The members of the syndicate/consortium for the zero-emission ferries are: Northern Ireland Advanced Composites Engineering (NIACE), Creative Composites, Invest Northern Ireland, Ulster University, Belfast Harbour, Bombardier Belfast, North Down Borough Council, Energia, Catalyst, Belfast Met, Belfast City Council, Ards and Queen’s University, Belfast.

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