WP1 is devoted to the management and dissemination of the project. Concerning management, the work carried out has included the organization of six Project meetings in different locations, the preparation and signature of the CA, as well as three amendments. FAGOR EDERLAN, as Project Coordinator, and TECNALIA, as member of the Coordination Board, have led these activities, with the involvement of the rest of the partners. Concerning dissemination activities, a dissemination plan has been followed and successfully implemented. Two leaflets and a poster have been prepared, FERROČTALIČ, RAUSCHERT, TECNALIA and FAGOR have participated in different industrial fairs showing the developments of the project, a promotional video has been released, different press releases have been published and part of the work has been presented to the scientific community at a conference and with the publication of a paper.
WP2 is devoted to the development of the CD aluminium engine block through the HPDC-LC technology. A tool with a simplified mono-cylinder core was manufactured and the cores produced with it were tested in HPDC machine to tune the different parameters of core production and die casting process. Different coatings were tested in order to avoid metal penetration inside the core. Ceramic cores with high geometrical complexity were developed, to produce the water jacket of the engine blocks. A pressing machine had to be tailored to meet the special requirements for this application. All the necessary tooling was designed and built: core pressing tool, HPDC die, HPDC spray head, robot gripper, etc. Technical difficulties were found during the development of the core. The first batch of cores did not have the required strength to withstand the HPDC injection, and further research had to be done to find a method to strengthen it. Finally, a new batch of reinforced cores was produced which resisted the casting conditions and finally 40 engine block prototypes were produced successfully and delivered to RENAULT to proceed with the validation in WP4. Concerning the de-coring activities, a pilot equipment was designed and built to meet the requirements of the project. UHP innovative technology was applied to build a de-coring station capable of destroying the core without damaging the casting. However, the core produced with the reinforced material showed high resistance to be destroyed and the cycle time necessary for the complete cleaning of a block was far from the initial target.
WP3 is devoted to the development of the process to produce large series of CD engine blocks by HPDC-LC technology, with the final objective of validating the process. The results of the previous tasks showed that it would be irrational to devote the necessary time and energy to produce 2.000 blocks as initially planned. Instead, the activities in this WP were dedicated to improve the strength of the cores and improve the process of pressing them, as well as the optimization of the HPDC process to reduce to the minimum the stresses exerted. The de-coring methods and tools were also optimized and developed further. The limits of the different parameters were defined in order to design a water jacket that would make it feasible to produce engine blocks in an industrial scale.
WP4 has the objective of validating the product. The engine blocks prototypes have been subjected to different characterization tests at RENAULT obtaining good results. The 40 prototypes have been machined and thermal-spray coated and a complete engine has been assembled in order to proceed with the validation tests. However, some unexpected issues with the bedplates and the oil jet have delayed the realization of the endurance tests.
WP5 is devoted to the validation of the business model prepared during the proposal stage and the preparation of the exploitation plan. All the partners have collaborated in the definition of the exploitation strategies and agreed in the IPRs of the different Key Exploitable Results (KERs) arising of the project.
