• What is the problem/issue being addressed?
Car weight has increased continuously in recent years. Despite the development of more efficient engines, the higher fuel consumption due to weight, and consequently higher CO2 emissions, have required intervention by the EC to set a path for emission reduction in the coming years.
Research into lightweight components, materials and the related processes, has led to the substitution of standard steel. Typically, steel is first substituted by aluminum, but automakers are looking more and more at CFRP technologies. This will also be important for next-generation hybrid or electric vehicles.
Reducing unsprung mass in the automobile, especially in the wheel, leads to lower inertia in acceleration, braking and better handling behavior. In the CARIM project, the first production process for a high volume automotive wheel made exclusively of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) addresses the issues mentioned above. An automated preforming and high-pressure resin transfer molding (HP-RTM) process chain is being designed, developed and validated to provide an economic production concept for CFRP wheels.
• Why is it important for society?
This market opportunity will be the start of further private investment and development in a European key technology (carbon composites), and opens a new sector for the automotive industry.
CARIM will bring strategic benefits to Europe by boosting the wheel production industry in the EU, which is currently spread globally with a negative outlook for production in Europe. Once the technology developed in CARIM is available on the market, production is expected to focus increasingly in Europe because the carbon composite raw material transformation process is historically well established in this continent. Increasing the market shares of European wheel producers in the high-tech section will create new jobs, and ongoing developments and improvements will ensure the use of CFRP wheels in high-volume applications.
• What are the overall objectives?
The CARIM wheel is are 28% lighter than the reference wheel made of aluminum. The developed, automatable production process chain is the first CFRP production method which is capable for manufacturing 20,000 wheels per production line per year. A five year plan was made to increase the production capacity at RiBa to 62.000 wheels per year and production line if a customer requests CFRP wheels. The market implementation of the developed CARIM carbon wheel will be implemented within one year after the project end.
The initial target market is the premium sport cars segment and next-generation electrical vehicles (low to mid-volume market). The possibility to scale up the production volume by improved process efficiency, higher automation degree and increased number of production lines will furthermore enable technology transfer to wider markets (sports car segment, electric and hybrid engine vehicles). This corresponds closely to the innovation strategy of the partners, who are experts along the CFRP value chain. They all gained specific know-how for wheel development activities with composite materials through the CARIM project and will benefit from the technology development activities also in new application fields. The industrial partners will or have therefore also increased their turnover and staff.
