Objective
Increasing awareness by the public opinion about environmental issues, energy and material conservation at all stages of product life (from raw materials to disposal/recycling) is putting the industry in general and the transport industry in particular under increased pressure to reduce CO2 emissions and save energy. Environmental protection and safety will be increasingly influenced by legislation.The European transport industry is estimated to generate 22% of the carbon dioxide emission. As the car population is expected to grow 40% by the year 2010 new tough targets for reducing emissions by 30% in 2010 are being set by the EU, against the state of the art technologies of 1995. It is generally agreed by the industry that reductions of this size will require a change in current technologies. Multimaterial technology (sandwich and/or hybrid materials) is becoming increasingly important in new vehicle design. Public service vehicles (buses and coaches) are regarded as primary targets for application of sandwich construction and multimaterials.
Public service vehicles (PSV) play a major role in the transportation industry of both industrialized and developing countries. The proposed project will be focused on the development of a novel technology to manufacture bus/coach bodies using sandwich multimaterial panels.
The main overall objectives of the project are:
- Solving the problem of reducing weight and production costs of land transport vehicles through the development of a technology of modular bus/coach construction, using ?all composite? multimaterial sandwich panels instead of steel/aluminium spaceframe lined with sheets of different materials.
- Devise design methodologies that reduce production lead time through reduction of number of components, functional integration, and allowance for dismantling, easy repair and recycling.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwaste managementwaste treatment processesrecycling
- engineering and technologycivil engineeringstructural engineeringstructural health monitoring
- social sciencessociologygovernancepublic services
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistrypost-transition metals
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesopticsfibre optics
Topic(s)
- SUSTDEV-2005-3.2.2.2.4 - Research domain 2.2 (only for a new generation of products and systems in waterborne transport), research domain 2.3 (for all types of transport vehicles and vessels excluding passenger cars), research domain 2.4 and research domain 2.6.
- SUSTDEV - Sustainable development, global change and ecosystems
Call for proposal
FP6-2005-TRANSPORT-4
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
STREP - Specific Targeted Research ProjectCoordinator
LEÇA DO BALIO
Portugal