by cidaut | Nov 17, 2016 | Sin categoría
The latest HYACINTH progress meeting was held at Aberdeen (UK) in October 5th, 2016. During the meeting, each Work Package Leader summarized the results obtained, deliverables and milestones achieved.
The meeting started with completed Work Packages (Context Analysis, Methodological Design and Data collection). Later on, work packages in progress (Data Analysis and interpretations, Development of Management toolbox and finally, Dissemination) were reviewed. The results of the stakeholder survey and general findings on public acceptance were discussed. Additionally, a brief pilot demo on the Stakeholder Acceptance Management Tool was made by WP6 leader. Finally, the coordinator explained the foreseen dissemination activities, workshops and conferences where the results will be presented.
The meeting was hosted by the Aberdeen City Council, a relevant partner of the consortium and with hydrogen demo projects in development. The project Consortium had the chance to visit the Hydrogen Production and Refuelling Facilities developed in the context of the Aberdeen Hydrogen Bus Project. This initiative comprises the High V.LO-City and HyTransit projects. The HyTransit project has delivered the hydrogen station as well as 6 fuel cell buses, while the High V.LO-City project has added another 4 buses to the fleet.
Willing to know more about the project? Visit http://hyacinthproject.eu or contact edumig@cidaut.es to share your experiences.
You can also find more about the available deliverables at http://hyacinthproject.eu/results/publications/
The HYACINTH project has received funding from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH-JU) under Grant Agreement Nº621228.
by cidaut | Nov 17, 2016 | Sin categoría
On the 20th and 21st of September, the first Light Electric Vehicle Summit was held in Barcelona. The event was successful; more than 150 participants from 25 different countries had the opportunity to attend the 70 presentations shown during the congress. Cidaut was there as a part of the Scientific Committee and also presenting the results of the European project Plus-Moby.
During the congress it was demonstrated that the integration of the light electric vehicles in the urban scenario is a fact and a growing tendency in the near future. Cidaut is aware of this situation and strongly believes in the need to ensure the safety grade of this kind of vehicles to increase their acceptance by the users, because being greener doesn’t mean that you are going to accept a lower safety level in your vehicle.
With this concern in mind, Cidaut’s presentation was focused on the crash behavior of the vehicle comparing the results achieved by simulation with the final results obtained experimentally. The structure of the vehicle developed during Plus Moby project is based in the use of ultra high strength steel. This solution has demonstrated to have a very good ratio between stiffness and weight. After several optimization cycles the final structure was defined. The manufacturing of four prototypes was under the responsibility of IFEVS, also present in Barcelona’s event, and the crash tests were performed at Cidaut’s facilities. The tests consisted on three frontal impacts attending to Euro Ncap configuration and one lateral impact in accordance with the R95 Regulation.
Two important conclusions can be obtained from the results achieved; the first one is that it is possible to obtain high safety levels in light weight reduced size electric vehicles. The second conclusion is that the correlation level between the simulation and the experimental results is very high.
During the project it has been learnt that the light electric vehicles crashworthiness presents several particularities, but most of the difficulties can be overcome to reach a safe design.
by cidaut | Nov 17, 2016 | Sin categoría
The latest technological developments, hyperconnectivity and the globalisation of the economy are creating important challenges and opportunities for our economy. These issues are already changing the “how to make” of our enterprises. This is what is recognized as Industry 4.0 or Fourth Industrial Revolution. It´s comprised of growing trends in new processing technologies, automations, the internet of things, big data and cloud computing technologies, etc. Just like steam power, electricity and digital automation of the previous industrial revolutions, cyber-physical systems and new processing technologies will create the factory of the future; the smart factory.
In this sense, one of these new technologies which more and more companies are just beginning to adopt is the additive manufacturing, such as 3-D printing and 3D scanning technologies, which companies use mostly to prototype and produce individual components. With Industry 4.0, these additive-manufacturing methods are being gradually used to produce small batches of customized products that offer construction advantages, such as complex, lightweight designs. High-performance, decentralized additive manufacturing systems reduce transport distances and stock on hand.
Faced with this situation, on October 27th 2016, a technical workshop on “ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING, 3D PRINTING AND SCANNING TECHNOLOGIES VS INDUSTRY 4.0” organized by CIDAUT Foundation, in collaboration with HEWLETT PACKARD and GRUPO SICNOVA, has taken place at our installations in Boecillo Technological Park.
The workshop covered up-to-date subjects such: “Additive manufacturing in the context of Industry 4.0”, “Industrial application of 3D digitalization technologies: reverse engineering and quality control”, “Challenges and opportunities of the additive manufacturing applied to the high-performance thermoplastic products”, and “Presentation of the Hewlett-Packard´s new 3D-printing technology for industrial applications”.
The workshop was very well received by the attendees, who particularly appreciated their practical approach. It was particularly well received the explanations by the HP Iberia 3D Printing Sales Manager, Mr. Jaume Homs, regarding to innovative “HP 3D Materials Platform” and its applications. This is a HP’s unique Open Platform approach is fostering widespread adoption of 3D printing by expanding the availability of new materials to address a broader set of applications, lowering materials costs, driving performance improvements, and creating new possibilities for part properties that address specific industry needs.
The organization of these kinds of workshops is a clear example of the pledge of the Cidaut Foundation with the dissemination of these new processing technologies to the industrial sector.
by cidaut | Sep 20, 2016 | Sin categoría
H2020 Remaghic project, coordinated by CIDAUT is one of the co-organizers of the event led by the EU MSCA-ETN DEMETER initiative (European Training Network for the Design and Recycling of Rare-Earth Permanent Magnet Motors and Generators in Hybrid and Full Electric Vehicles), together with KU Leuven Arenberg Doctoral School and the RARE³ KU Leuven cluster. The aim of this Summer School is to bring 50-60 PhD students and postdocs together to learn and discuss about the “Design and Recycling of Rare-Earth Permanent Magnet Motors and Generators in Hybrid and Full Electric Vehicles“. The lecturers are world class experts.
Taking part from the 24th to the 26th of August, the topics that have been covered in this summer school include: rare earths applications, REEs in magnesium alloys, rare earths recycling and the balance problem, recovery of REEs from electronic waste to name but those most related to Remaghic.
CIDAUT’s lecture started from the Remaghic idea of recycling magnesium and alloying it to recycled rare earths to obtain a cost competitive Mg-REE alloy from secondary sources with the performance of a primary alloy. Magnesium is a challenging material in terms of manufacturing. In this regard, CIDAUT has taken part in the ALIVE project developing new manufacturing technologies based on magnesium casting that can produce high quality complex parts that comply with strict structural requirements. The Remaghic project will finalize with the construction of an industrial magnesium recycling facility which will be installed at Grupo Antolín Magnesio premises, one of the lead magnesium founders worldwide, and will demonstrate the feasibility of obtaining high performance competitive magnesium alloys from secondary raw materials, thus enforcing the circular economy within Europe and lessening our dependence from exterior sources.
by cidaut | Sep 20, 2016 | Sin categoría
Global warming concerns have led to the demand for higher energy-efficiency in the automotive industry. At the same time urbanisation is closely connected with the evolution of mobility with cities becoming more and more the centres of economical and social activities. These factors create new needs, opportunities and technological challenges in the form of lighter, thus more energy efficient vehicles but also in terms of new vehicle concepts providing efficient and affordable, yet safe individual mobility for urban areas.
Within the three EU funded projects and ALIVE, ENLIGHT and epsilon, all related to the SEAM cluster of projects, different approaches and technologies to address these challenges have been developed. The SEAM cluster has been initiated in 2012 by the four EU funded projects SafeEV, ENLIGHT, ALIVE and MATISSE. All four projects have been funded within the European Green Vehicle Initiative (EGVI) as part of the seventh framework programme of the European Commission. In 2013 the two EGVI projects epsilon and Urban-EV, in which CIDAUT also takes part, joined the seam cluster. With 55 partners from 11 European countries and a total funding of some 25 million Euro SEAM is the biggest European network on lightweight design. The results of the projects will be displayed during the Aachen Body Engineering Days 2016 within a dedicated impulse session and exhibition (for more information please refer to www.ika.rwth-aachen.de).
Following the conference, on September 22nd 2016 the project partners will demonstrate and communicate the projects outcomes in detail and would also like to discuss their findings and recommendations with relevant stakeholders, industry partners and other research initiatives and interest groups.
ALIVE aims to develop key vehicle lightweighting technologies for application to near-future electric vehicles to be introduced into the market from 2020 up to a level of technology readiness that would enable mass production (around 1000 vehicles/day). The key objective is to achieve affordable solutions for vehicle weight reduction targeting a further 20 % weight reduction of the Body-in-White (BiW) compared to the 30 % weight reduction already demonstrated in recent EU funded RTD projects. To arrive there, the vehicle modules went through regular iterations during the past year to optimise their design according to the needs of the materials and manufacturing technologies targeted throughout the project, whilst ensuring top safety standards and manufacturability at high volumes.
A significant 35% weight reduction was achieved for the Body in White (BiW) component, while for certain components reductions reached a staggering 50% comparing with reference modules.
ALIVE will showcase a full vehicle demonstrator model at the mentioned final event, side by side with the ENLIGHT demonstrator modules.
First prototype parts of the ALIVE cushion
For more information on the event please refer to: http://www.ika.rwth-aachen.de
For more information about ALIVE, please visit: http://www.project-alive.eu
