Japan currently produces a wide range of composite materials but require a lot of time and expense to develop. This new R&D, conducted under the Japanese government’s Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP), aims to reduce the cost and time needed to develop composite materials for next-generation aircraft by up to 50 per cent.

To achieve this, the team will create an integrated system capable of digitally developing CFRP for aircraft structures using simulation tools developed by Tohoku University, and NEC’s SX-Aurora TSUBASA vector supercomputer.

Specifically, by implementing simulation codes on a supercomputer that can analyse mechanical responses from a molecular level to the aircraft’s wing and fuselage, the processes of material selection and design can be performed at high speed and at multiple scales.

With this system as a common platform, it is expected that tailor-made material development can more effectively meet the demands of airframe manufacturers.

Using the results from scientific research in composite materials, Tohoku University has already developed a variety of simulation tools for CFRP, together with companies participating in Japan’s Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program. The integrated systems developed in this R&D will be applied to aircraft as well as a wide range of other vehicles in the future.

Simulation programs for materials integration systems will be vectorised and parallelised for the SX-Aurora TSUBASA vector supercomputer in order to significantly reduce the execution times of the simulation programs. This research emphasises cooperation with participating companies in order to accelerate programs.

The SX-Aurora supercomputer consists of vector engines that perform high performance simulation programs and a vector host that performs a wide variety of processes. This R&D utilises NEC’s supercomputer technologies and system construction know-how to systematise simulation programs with the SX-Aurora supercomputer. The materials integration system will combine both data science and optimal material design.

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CFRP, a composite material that contains carbon fibre, which is about four times lighter than steel yet 10 times stronger, is widely used in the aerospace, automotive, shipbuilding, and sports equipment industries. Structurally, CFRP is made up of carbon fibre and epoxy resin, which serve functions in this composite material similar to the respective roles that reinforcing rods and cement play in concrete structures. To achieve mechanical rigidity, the binding of carbon fibre and epoxy resin in CFRP must be strong. Moreover, CFRP must be fire-safe, as it is used for purposes closely related to everyday life, e.g., use as a construction material. To induce these traits in CFRP, sometimes it is synthesized with additives.

Due to its susceptibility to heat, CFRP had been made fire-safe by adding a halogen flame-retardant. However, the use of halogen in CFRP was banned worldwide, because it generates toxic substances when incinerated for recycling. As such, the task at hand was to make CFRP flame-retardant with the use of non-toxic, safe material.

We have created a composite material with an expanded range of application that is a dramatic improvement over conventional carbon fibre-reinforced plastic in terms of flame-retardancy, mechanical rigidity, and recyclability.

Head researcher Dr. Jung

Jung Yong-chae, head researcher at KIST’s Institute of Advanced Composite Materials, sought to improve the mechanical rigidity and flame-retardance of CFRP with tannic acid, an eco-friendly substance. Tannic acid characteristically bonds strongly with carbon fibre. It also turns into charcoal when burned. Charred tannic acid functions as a barrier that blocks the inflow of external oxygen. By manufacturing epoxy resin from tannic acid and mixing it into carbon fibre, the KIST research team successfully developed a CFRP that is strong and flame-retardant.

Unlike conventional epoxy resin that is vulnerable to heat, epoxy resin made from tannic acid is flame-retardant and needs no additives. This means that the toxic substances generated when incinerating CFRP for recycling would no longer be a problem. Also, because conventional CFRP when burned decreased the performance of its epoxy resin, precluding complete recycling, the research team came up with a new recycling method.

By dissolving CFRP in water in a supercritical fluid state—i.e., temperature and pressure over a set level—over 99% of the CFRP could be recovered without reduced carbon fibre performance. It was also found that epoxy resin when dissolved produced a substance called “carbon dots,” which can be used as an electronic material (Optronics, Sensing, Bioimaging etc.). Unlike the method of recycling by incineration, which burns up epoxy resin leaving only the incomplete carbon fibre to be recycled, this new method of recycling enables the recycling of all components of a composite material.

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Baillie Gifford, known for their track record of investing in technology companies such as Amazon, Tesla, Airbnb and SpaceX has invested $35 million into the company.

The news comes less than three months after Lilium confirmed it had received $240m in additional funding from existing investors including Atomico, Freigeist, LGT and Tencent, who led the investment round.

The funds raised during this round give us the security to weather the challenging economic landscape we see around us and we’re grateful to be able to stay fully focused on our mission

The new funds bring the total sum raised to date to more than $375m, which will be used to support further development of the Lilium Jet as well as underpinning preparations for serial production in Lilium’s newly-completed manufacturing facilities.

The Lilium Jet, constructed using carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) is a new type of aircraft that the company says will deliver regional journeys that are considerably faster than rail or road, yet competitive in price. The demonstrator aircraft first flew in May 2019 and is a five-seater, fully-electric aircraft that can take-off and land vertically (eVTOL). Lilium expects to service a sizeable global market demand by connecting communities at a fraction of the cost of conventional high-speed infrastructure, with zero operating emissions.

As well as designing and manufacturing the Lilium Jet, the company plans to operate a regional air mobility service as early as 2025 in several regions around the world. It recently celebrated the completion of the first stage of flight testing, with the five-seater Lilium Jet demonstrator flying at speeds exceeding 100 km/h.

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Self-sensing is the ability of a material to sense its own condition which means you don’t need an implanted or attached sensor system reducing costs while increasing durability and sensor coverage.

Polymer-matrix composites, containing continuous carbon fibre, are known materials that have self-sensing capabilities based on measurable changes in electrical resistance of the continuous fibres. For example, a self-sensing composite was used for damage detection in a cylinder made by filament winding. The practical importance of such products can potentially be found in structural health monitoring in aeroplanes or critical parts of constructions like bridges.

Brightlands Materials Center is combining the self-sensing properties of continuous fibre reinforced thermoplastics with fabrication by additive manufacturing. Additive manufacturing with continuous fibres enables very precise positioning and orientation of carbon fibres. The carbon fibres are placed at chosen locations inside the product that forms an integral part of the structure. That means that the carbon fibre “sensors” are located where they are needed, and multiple fibres could form a range of sensors throughout the part.

The concept was proven by Brightlands Materials Center by monitoring deformation in a simple bending beam and in a scale model of a pedestrian composite bridge. Both were printed with an Anisoprint A4 Composer which allows full freedom of the carbon fibre layout and material choice. This is specifically important for sensing because carbon fibre has to stick out of the part to be able to make connections to the monitoring electronic hardware.

Damage detection by self-sensing in 3D printed bike frame lugs is part of the “100% Limburg Bike” project in which the centre collaborates with amongst others Eurocarbon, CeraCarbon, Brightlands Chemelot Campus and Belgian Cycling Factory – known from racing bike brands like Ridley and Eddy Merkcx – and which is supported by the European Fund for Regional Development and the Province of Limburg in the OPZuid framework.

Self-sensing can also play a role in the design and prototype phase of new products or in replacing spare parts that are not available anymore. 3D printed self-sensing fibre reinforced thermoplastics can help to gather information about the real use circumstances. During a testing period, the self-sensing 3D printed part registers the real dynamics and forces that a product needs to withstand. This gives designers and engineers a clearer understanding of what requirements the 3D printed parts will have to meet. As a diagnosis tool, 3D printed self-sensing orthoses or protheses might guide patients and provide valuable information to doctors, regarding stress distribution and movement patterns.

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Carbon fibre-reinforced plastics (CFRP) are one of the most versatile composite construction materials. They combine the positive mechanical properties of their constituent parts – a polymer matrix reinforced with high-strength carbon fibres – to create a solution that offers high strength, high stiffness and low density. So why are CFRPs still struggling to achieve a real breakthrough at a time of increasing concerns about energy and resource efficiency? One reason is their high production costs – and another is the difficulty of machining and processing CFRP components.

The conventional way of assembling carbon fibre-reinforced polymer components is to drill holes in the fabricated CFRP module and then glue in metal fasteners such as threaded inserts. Replacing conventional parts with lightweight components requires connections between the CFRP part and the conventional parts that are both detachable and secure.

The CarboLase project, started by Fraunhofer in 2017 pursued a different approach by integrating the fasteners in the textile preforms. The final CFRP is then produced with an additional curing process that includes the fasteners. This can significantly shorten production process chains. However, this method only works if the cut-outs for the fasteners in the textile preform are drilled with extreme precision.

The project team developed a CFRP component manufacturing process that checked all the boxes by opting for a three-pronged approach of CNC cutting, laser processing and automated handling. They combined the technologies for these individual process steps in a single robot cell and automated all the steps in between. First, the preform is created by cutting, stacking and assembling the textiles. Next, an ultrashort pulsed (USP) laser drills high-precision cut-outs in the preforms for the metal fasteners.

The USP laser offers a good alternative to conventional manufacturing – but only if the laser is integrated into the robot cell. In a traditional set-up, the ultrashort pulses would be guided to their destination using mirrors, but this is hardly practical on a robot arm. To tackle this problem, experts from Fraunhofer ILT and AMPHOS GmbH worked together to develop a novel technology for coupling the USP laser beam in and out. The USP laser source is connected to the scanner on the robot arm via a hollow-core fibre.

To test the new method and demonstrate its technical feasibility, the project partners produced a demonstrator of a B-pillar component and subjected it to extensive mechanical testing, which it passed with flying colours. In a series of both pullout and torsion tests, the joints produced using the CarboLase method performed better than those in CFRP components produced by conventional means. Thanks to the interlocking connection between the inserts and the matrix material, the CFRP components produced using this new method can withstand a maximum pullout force up to 50 per cent higher than conventionally manufactured components with glued-in inserts. Depending on the component design, this improvement in mechanical performance offers the potential to reduce the overall component thickness and weight.

The CarboLase method offers designers considerably more creative freedom when it comes to defining fastener size and position. Robots and scanners can move much more freely on both the meter and micron scales than static mechanical machining centres. This paves the way for efficient mass customization of CFRP components that goes beyond the current state of the art. The dynamic USP laser drilling process is of particular interest for lightweight components in the aerospace and automotive sectors, offering the potential to reduce the process and material costs of CFRP component manufacturing.

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With the launch of the BMW iNEXT in 2021, The Dingolfing plant will be capable of producing fully-electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and models with combustion engines to suit demand on a single assembly line. In August 2019, production was interrupted for four weeks to allow the vehicle plant to forge ahead with various construction and remodelling activities and prepare the location for new models like the BMW iNEXT.

The body shop at the heart of the plant was geared up for the BMW iNEXT several months ago. New production lines are currently being built for the body’s complex floor assembly. The plant benefits to a large extent from its years of expertise in composite and lightweight construction, as well as from structures created for the current generation of the BMW 7 Series. Production at the plant was already set up for handling an innovative mix of steel, aluminium and Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic for the iNext model.

SGL Carbon was selected to produce the carbon fibre components along with a number of composite components for the iNEXT. The carbon fibres will be manufactured at the company’s Moses Lake plant then shipped to their Wackersdorf site in Germany where the fabrics will be produced based on the fibres from Moses Lake. The SGL’s Moses Lake facility began as a joint venture between SGL Carbon and BMW. However, SGL Carbon bought out BMW’s 49 per cent stake in the facility back in 2017.

Plant Dingolfing is one of the BMW Group’s 31 production sites worldwide. Around 1,500 BMW 3 Series, 4 Series, 5 Series, 6 Series, 7 Series and 8 Series cars are produced daily at the Dingolfing automotive plant 02.40. In 2018, the plant produced a total of nearly 330,000 vehicles. Around 18,000 employees and 800 trainees currently work at the Dingolfing location.

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In a paper published by the journal Nature Materials, scientists and engineers from Surrey and Airbus Defence and Space detail how they have developed a multi-layered nano-barrier that bonds with the CFRP and eliminates the need for multiple bake-out stages and the controlled storage required in its unprotected state.

We are confident that the reinforced composite we have reported is a significant improvement over similar methods and materials already on the market. These encouraging results suggest that our barrier could eliminate the considerable costs and dangers associated with using carbon fibre reinforced polymers in space missions. Professor Ravi Silva, Director of the Advanced Technology Institute at the University of Surrey

Surrey engineers have shown that their thin nano-barrier – measuring only sub-micrometres in thickness, compared to the tens of micrometres of current space mission coatings – is less susceptible to stress and contamination at the surface, keeping its integrity even after multiple thermal cycles.

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Very little is known about the behaviour of carbon fibre reinforced plastics or CFRP for short during the course of an aircrafts flight. Researchers at Fraunhofer have now accurately verified the degree to which CFRP parts deform during flight.

In order to test the stresses on CFRP the researchers stripped a medium-range test aircraft of seats, interior walls and passengers with cables, sensors, and measurement equipment. A component made of carbon fibre reinforced plastic forms the upper fuselage from the cockpit to the wings. Lightweight yet stable, It is certain that it will withstand the stress of the test flight, but the question is to what degree will it deform during different flight manoeuvres? Exact values had not yet been known.

Conchin Contell Asins, scientist at the Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability LBF in Darmstadt and her colleague Oliver Schwarzhaupt determined exactly how this happens by using a special test setup during the test flights. With the help of fibre optic technology, optical measuring fibres detected even minimal deformations.

[quote_colored name=”” icon_quote=”no”]The goal is to build even lighter CFRP components and to increase the operating time of the components and saving on unnecessary material means needing less fuel.[/quote_colored]

The aim of the measurement flights was to obtain solid data that can be compared with the theoretical calculations of the flight behaviour of CFRP. The real data requires aircraft manufacturers to build components so precisely that they can withstand the stresses that occur in the respective aircraft model. This has so far only been possible by approximation. Therefore, aircraft manufacturers are integrating CFRP over-dimensioned in new models, as a precaution.

The test flights have shown that the researchers testing setup works and they have been able to assign a unique CFRP deformation to each flight manoeuvre. The values were so accurate that conclusions could have also been reached about the flight profile based upon the strain signals. It is also possible with this system to monitor the structure for its condition during the flight. A change in the deformation behaviour might indicate damage, with such monitoring of the structure, components could remain in use for much longer.

In the test flight, the team of scientists from Darmstadt installed the complete measurement hardware in the plane and evaluated the data. The aircraft manufacturer analyses the results in JTI Clean Sky Green Regional Aircraft Platform of the 7th Framework Program, a research initiative of the European Commission and the European aviation industry. The goal: to build even lighter CFRP components and to increase the operating time of those components.

The CFRP component which was about five-by-three-meters long and the researchers applied the optical measuring fibres on the side facing the aircraft interior. The thin, elongated glass fibres are well suited to display even very weak changes of larger components.

An optical-electrical evaluation unit recorded the signals of the measuring fibres. The black box provided additional information about the altitude, airspeed and flight manoeuvres, all of this data was then analysed with the help of special software.

To attach the strain sensors to the right places, the researchers had to know where stress typically occurs during flight manoeuvres. They were able to bring in expertise about the behaviour of CFRP using previous test data. In CFRP structures in aircraft, the attached stiffeners primarily bear the stress. These are located on the inside of the hull in the longitudinal and circumferential direction of the fuselage.

The researchers are currently working with partners on a new project: In this case, the test setup is mounted on an aircraft fuselage, which is made with new production processes. However, this is tested on the ground. The falling air pressure at high altitudes is simulated by air which is filled into the body and which increases the internal pressure in the cabin.

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While BMW’s carbon-fibre beam frame will look much like a conventional aluminium chassis, according to MCN the patents reveal that internally its construction is quite different.

The frames creation starts with eight lengths of ‘pultruded’ carbon-fibre. The pultruded parts are only partially cured, so they remain malleable enough to be formed around a buck where they’re added to pre-made metal or carbon-fibre parts including a headstock and a pair of cross braces – one below the swingarm pivot, the other forming a top mount for the rear shock. The four longer pultruded sections form the main frame rails while two shorter ones run from the headstock back to where the engine’s cylinder head will be, becoming front engine mounts.

MCN goes on to say that the Carbon fibre sheets are then added to both the outside and inside walls of the frame, hiding the square-section tubes and creating the sort of familiar beam-frame shape we’re used to seeing, before the whole lot is baked under pressure in an autoclave to completely cure the resin and give the chassis its finished strength.

BMW has invested a lot of time and money into advanced carbon fibre production and are actively looking for new areas to apply this technology. After the i series the company recently launched its new 7 series with a host of carbon fibre enhancements.

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Trials at the Hohenstein Institute have shown how biotechnology can be used to create new ways of recycling carbon fibres. Researchers in the team led by Christin Glöckner are using microbiological systems to bring about the controlled breakdown of the synthetic matrix.

Even though manufacturing with composites can be very expensive, every year around 3000 tonnes of carbon fibre waste is generated in Europe alone, an enormous waste of such a valuable raw material as carbon fibres. The institute say that the recycling process currently being used to predominantly recycle carbon fibre is extremely energy-intensive and only short-staple carbon fibres can be recovered. Furthermore, the chemical and mechanical recycling methods that are known about today are very labour-intensive.

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The researchers at the Hohenstein Institute would like to develop a promising new alternative solution based on biotechnological recycling. They are making use of the fact that certain microorganisms are able to metabolise chemical substances, such as polyether resin, by biochemical processes.

By selecting suitable microorganisms, the researchers have managed to break down the plastic matrix of CFRPs, which is normally made of epoxy resin. This means that the plastic matrix can be broken down microbiologically and returned to the materials cycle as a metabolite. At the same time, the carbon fibres are extracted without damaging them so that they can be reclaimed for use in new products.

At the specialist conference on “Composite Recycling” earlier this year in Stuttgart, the first meeting of leading CFRP producers, manufacturers and recyclers was held, at which the main focus was on introducing recycling methods for reclaiming valuable carbon fibres. New ideas and solutions for “Composite Recycling” were presented and aspects of eco-balancing (energy efficiency, reduced emissions, costs) were discussed.

At the event It was agreed that in future there will be more and more end-of-life products which should go on to be recycled, but the search for alternative and sustainable solutions is not yet over. Following on from recycling, new strategies for using recycled fibres were also presented at the Stuttgart conference, such as the wet laid process used in carbon fibre paper manufacture and the extrusion of short-staple fibres in a polyamide filament matrix.

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