Digital platform for data-driven and physics-based product development enabling a circular economy

Project Information

Digi4Circular

Grant agreement ID: 101177586

DOI

10.3030/101177586

EC signature date 23 October 2024

Start date 1 November 2024

End date 30 April 2028

Funded under

• Digital, Industry and Space

Total cost

€ 5 764 110,50

EU contribution

€ 5 764 108,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITAET PADERBORN
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Digi4Circular (Digital platform for data-driven and physics-based product development enabling a circular economy)

Reporting period: 2024-11-01 to 2026-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The linear economy’s environmental burden is critical, making resource optimization and waste minimization urgent priorities with significant ecological and economic benefits. This transition is vital for the automotive sector, responsible for 14% of global GHG emissions. The EU industry consumes 2 million tonnes of aluminium annually—triple any other sector. While primary production is energy-intensive and damaging, recycling scrap reduces CO2 emissions by up to 85%. However, current alloys often face downcycling due to low impurity tolerance, underscoring the need to embed circularity from the earliest design phases and develop materials compatible with circular production.
Designing circular products requires a seamless information loop from EoL phases—reuse, remanufacturing, recycling—back to new product development. Yet, current CAD systems are not fully equipped for such multidisciplinary data exchange. Despite integration efforts, access to comprehensive data from supply chain experts remains fragmented. A notable deficiency exists regarding material properties, EoL processes, and evolving regulatory frameworks, hindering circular integration. Distributed expertise leads to information scarcity, while data duplication creates unnecessary storage demands and process inefficiencies.
Recycled components complicate development due to altered material properties and chemical compositions. Novel computational methods are needed to predict these properties and develop innovative alloys with enhanced scrap compatibility, considering life-cycle behavior and regulatory constraints. Increased regulatory requirements further complicate the landscape, necessitating robust compliance frameworks. Only multidisciplinary approaches and industrial-ready workflows can address these challenges.
Digi4Circular addresses these gaps by developing a powerful digital platform for circular product development, demonstrated via automotive aluminium casting use cases. Combining automated workflows with machine learning-supported algorithms, the platform generates circular designs and manufacturing strategies based on life-cycle environmental impacts. The solution integrates novel computational methods to increase secondary aluminium usage and establishes an infrastructure for capturing product lifecycle data in an interoperable Digital Product Passport, ensuring transparency and compliance across the value chain.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The necessary technologies and methodical approaches developed by Digi4Circular’s partners include the following technological aspects:
• An Information Space:
o Development of an architecture for a single source of truth in regard of all relevant information (finished: EDAG, DataCL, SusDat)
o Locally running MVP of the information space for proof of concept (finished: EDAG, DataCL, SusDat)
o Automatic transfer of all data to the information space, using intelligent decision tools and data aggregation to avoid data waste (under development: SusDat, DataCL)
o Connection of a digital product passport architecture to gather information from a single source (under development: DataCL, EDAG, UNIFI)
• Innovative Aluminum alloy:
o Realisation of requirement-based material development and property definition (finished: EDAG, UPB, LKR)
o Computational material design for identifying impurity tolerant alloy concepts with defined properties by minimising detrimental phases such as β-AlFeSi and Al2Cu and maximising the Q-Phase and α-AlFeMnSi Phase (finished: UPB, LKR)
o Specimen casting and mechanical investigation of the designed alloy “LWK1” compared to Tesla 3C10 HPDC commercial alloy (under development: LKR, UPB)
o Additional corrosion testing of the developed alloy and development of accelerated testing methods (not started: FhG, LKR, UPB)
• Rapid LCA Tool:
o Development of a dataset of process archetypes together with the analysis of the commercial impact database, establishing a methodological foundation for the rapid LCA tool and defining a literature-derived base process archetype (finished: UNIFI, CELSA, FERI)
o Establishment of Digi4Circular specific EoL strategies and business model development (finished: CELSA, FERI, UNIFI)
o A validated excel based RapidLCA mock-up was developed and first steps toward the implementation in the Synera platform of an automated methodology for production process reconstruction and subsequent LCA estimation (under development: UNIFI, UPB)
• Knowledge extraction technologies:
o Definition of technical differentiation criteria for Large Language Models (LLMs) and technical comparison using selected models, including Llama, ChatGPT5 Turbo, and Gemini (finished: UPB)
o Interoperability investigations of data and formats within the information space, using the ReqIF data type as the solution artifact (finished: UPB, EDAG). (finished: UPB, EDAG)
o Content identification for ontology mapping across all work packages and domains (under development: UPB, EDAG)
• Orchestration as a key feature for circular development:
o Setting up design rule catalogue for circular design (finished: UPB, UNIFI, CELSA, FERI)
o Translation and semantic connections for design rules and preparation of a rule-based system approach for automatic design changes (under development: UPB, EDAG, UNIFI)
o Development of an overall process diagram for orchestration implementation (finished: UPB, EDAG)
o Technical specifications and interconnection of methodologies for Synera integration (under development: EDAG, all)
o First integration attempts like Rapid-LCA-LCC tool and ICMD integration for material design (under development: EDAG, UPB, UNIFI)
The Digi4Circular methodologies are progressing well, and the infrastructure is mostly defined. Initial implementation attempts on the Synera platform have shown first successes, as well as the need for some adaptations to the methodologies in order to fully enable the connection of all subtasks within the project.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The technical achievements described above lay the groundwork for the project’s ambitious environmental and economic targets. If the current technical trajectory is maintained, Digi4Circular is positioned to deliver the following indicative impacts:
By enabling high-quality recycling of aluminum (targeting 70% secondary content), the project aims to reduce lifecycle CO2 emissions by up to 70% compared to primary aluminum production.
The integration of AI-driven knowledge extraction, a rule-based system and automated LCA is expected to reduce engineering and compliance time by 30%, accelerating time-to-market for circular components.
The DPP and Information Space provide the digital infrastructure necessary for end-to-end supply chain transparency, fostering trust in secondary materials.
To ensure successful market adoption and project completion, the following needs are critical:
Clear EU regulations and harmonized standards for the Digital Product Passport are essential to drive industrial uptake and legal compliance, ensuring both economic feasibility and data reliability.
Further demonstration is required to validate the reliability of the orchestration workflows and alloy properties in real-world manufacturing conditions.
Establishing IPR strategies for novel alloy designs and robust data-sharing protocols is essential to unlock the project’s commercial potential. This includes exploring opportunities for licensing agreements with industry partners and identifying pathways for spin-offs or startups to commercialize the Digi4Circular platform and material innovations. Clear IPR frameworks will enable secure, scalable business models and foster long-term industry adoption.