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
by cidaut | Sep 20, 2016 | Sin categoría
The VULKANO consortium met in Brussels last July 12-13th to kick-off the project. All partners introduced their companies to the EC Project Officer, highlighting their respective role in the project (BOSIO, FIVES STEIN, CSM, PCM Products, VALJI, TECNALIA, IEN, TORRECID, FRAUNHOFER, ASAŞ, CIDAUT and CIRCE as coordinator). It was also possible to have with us the Executive Director of SPIRE (Sustainable Process Industry through Resource and Energy Efficiency) Public Private Partnership.
This EC-funded project aims to provide solutions for a more efficient and sustainable European industry. In particular, the project’s efforts will be focused on Energy Intensive Industries as they are constantly facing challenges to enhance their process efficiency, reliability and flexibility. This is especially true for processes that involve industrial furnaces due to their high energy consumption rates.
20% increase in industrial furnace efficiency and 27% reduction of fossil fuels use
With these objectives in mind, the project will design, implement, integrate and validate five innovative strategies: improved refractory materials, phase change materials energy recovery, monitoring, in-house predictive tool and co-firing.
CIDAUT will be specially focused to the co-firing strategy that will partially replace natural gas by alternative or renewable energy sources. To do so, new or retrofitted burners will be developed to run on syngas obtained from biomass or other off-gases recovered from the process.
by cidaut | Sep 20, 2016 | Sin categoría
HYACINTH Project is gaining knowledge on social acceptance of Fuel Cell and Hydrogen (FCH) applications among general public and key stakeholders across Europe. Within the last months, the main focus has been on data collection via questionnaires and interviews in the targeted countries (Belgium, Norway, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Slovenia and Spain). These data are being used to examine awareness, familiarity, perception of benefits and costs, global attitude and acceptance of FCH technologies.
In order to engage stakeholders and gain visibility for the future dissemination of results, the project has been presented in several national and international events. The presentations are available in the results area of HYACINTH Project’s website.
Next October 28th-29th, Hyacinth will be present at the Energy and Environment Knowledge Week Congress (E2KW) that will be held in Paris and which is designed to be a multidisciplinary event where it can be discussed cutting-edge research in energy and environment in all possible fields of study.
HYACINTH Project’s next results coming soon
Together with the main findings out of the survey, a Social Acceptance Information Tool Box (SAMT) that supports acceptance on future FCH systems and projects will be presented in a series of Experimental Toolbox sessions organized by HYACINTH.
If you want to know more about our Project, visit http://hyacinthproject.eu/, or join us to share your experience and ideas:
The HYACINTH project has received funding from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH-JU) under Grant Agreement Nº621228.
by cidaut | Sep 20, 2016 | Sin categoría
In mid-July, we received the EC evaluation for NEOHIRE proposal. It was favorably evaluated within the H2020-NMBP-2016 call, and the grant preparation process started immediately.
The consortium includes CEIT as coordinator, Fraunhofer LBF and CIDAUT as research partners; UPV, UOB and KU Leuven as educational partners and Gamesa, Kolektor and Aichi as industrial partners. The EC has granted NEOHIRE a 4.917.638,75 € funding for this project.
NEOHIRE project (NEOdymium-Iron-Boron base materials, fabrication techniques and recycling solutions to HIghly REduce the consumption of Rare Earths in Permanent Magnets for Wind Energy Application) aims to research and develop new Permanent Magnet material technologies and solutions, in order to achieve a High Efficient Electric Power System based on highly optimized Wind Turbines with a strongly reduced dependence of Europe Access to Critical Raw Materials, especially rare earth elements (REE).
Figure 1 Examples for sintered permanent magnets in wind turbine rotor (left) and tentative NEOHIRE new bonded permanent magnet with complex geometry (right)
In order to strongly reduce the REE demand in WTG, NEOHIRE project will research and develop new anisotropic resin-bonded permanent magnets (PM) using gas atomised powders with ultrafine microstructure. It is expected to reduce in this application the required amount of NdFeB alloys in about 30wt% thanks to the substitution of sintered magnets by the new anisotropic bonded ones.
Figure 2 NEOHIRE overall project concept
NEOHIRE will develop a new concept of PM to be used in wind turbine that will decrease the necessity of neodymium (Nd) and that will fully eliminate the use of REEs and other critical raw materials (cobalt (Co) and gallium (Ga)) of its formulation. Furthermore, using tools to recover Nd, REEs and Co from current sintered PM and Nd from NEOHIRE new magnets will be designed.
With this new strategy, NEOHIRE will achieve a reduction of the EU dependency from Chinese market on REEs and CRM of up to 50% for permanent magnets in wind turbine.
by cidaut | Jun 9, 2016 | Sin categoría
CIDAUT has recently started the project BRACKETWELD, a 3 years Research & Innovation Action launched under the Platform 2 of the Large Passenger Aircraft IADP program within Clean Sky 2, which is orientated to the development, assessment and selection of integrative concepts to optimize assembly of elementary parts, sub-components and modules in modern aircrafts. The general objective of the BRACKETWELD project is to contribute to the cost-efficient integration of system and aircraft structures by the development of innovative technology for the rapid assembly of thermoplastic brackets to thermosetting composite components like stringers and frames.
Brackets are small fixation elements used as local links between aircraft structure, systems and cabin. The assembly of these elements to structural components made of thermosetting CFRP (Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymers) is carried out by time-consuming techniques, like adhesive bonding or mechanical fastening, that add significant labour and tooling costs to the whole assembly process. Usually, brackets are made of metals but they could be made by injection moulding of reinforced thermoplastics leading to significant reductions in weight and costs. However, the use of thermoplastic brackets is still very limited because of the increased difficulty of the adhesive bonding process with thermoplastic materials.
Figure 1 Thermoplastic bracket example
The present research initiative aims to cope with the limitations mentioned above, by the development of an innovative technology for the rapid assembly of thermoplastic brackets to thermosetting CFRP parts using ultrasonic welding. Since the thermosetting materials cannot be welded, a layer of thermoplastic material will be co-cured with the CFRP component, being this layer an attachment area for the ultrasonic welding of the thermoplastic bracket. Figure 2 shows the general concept for the assembly of thermoplastic brackets to CFRP components:
Figure 2 Thermoplastic bracket welding concept
The key challenge will be the development of an appropriate surface media compatible with the thermoplastic materials of the brackets while at the same time achieving a very high adhesion to the thermosetting composite during the co-curing process.
During the project CIDAUT will contribute to the development of this innovative assembly technology addressing the following objectives:
- The development of an efficient test method for the quick evaluation of materials compatibility that will be used for the down selection of surface media alternatives.
- The definition, evaluation and selection of the most appropriate surface media for the selected thermoplastic brackets.
- The final validation by the assessment of assembly performances according to the usual requirements of bonded brackets.
The succeed in the development of this innovative assembly technology will mean significant advantages in terms of reductions in weight, costs and energy consumptions, avoiding the current needs for complex surface preparations, expensive adhesives, curing times and simplifying quality control procedures. The magnitude of the potential benefits is large, just considering the number of ten thousand brackets that are used in the A350-XWB.
by cidaut | Jun 9, 2016 | Energy
Partners of the HYACINTH project (Hydrogen Acceptance in the Transition Phase) met at the FCH-JU premises in Brussels to review the work done during the first project period. During the project meeting each Work Package (WP) leader presented the current status and results of their activities and the integration with subsequent project WPs was discussed. In the Mid-Term review, the risks and areas of improvement were discussed together with the Project Officer and external experts.
HYACINTH project is aimed at studying the social acceptance, by the general public and the key stakeholders, of Fuel Cell and Hydrogen (FCH) applications across Europe. Within this period, the main work has been focused on a context analysis of FCH projects in the targeted countries (Germany, France, United Kingdom, Slovenia and Spain) and a review of the acceptance assessment methodologies applied in former FCH technologies oriented studies. A systematic research design has also been developed to study public and stakeholder acceptance of FCH technologies. The project ongoing activities are dealing with the data collection via questionnaires and interviews.
The HYACINTH project will present at the WHEC 2016
Next June 13th-16th, Zaragoza (Spain) will hold the 11th World Hydrogen Energy Conference. This event is the world’s most well-known conference in the field of hydrogen energy and fuel cells of the IAHE (International Association for Hydrogen Energy) and is organized by the Spanish Hydrogen Association (AeH2). In this forum, Hyacinth Project first results will be showed to stakeholders and members of the research and industry community.
If you want to know more about our Project, visit http://hyacinthproject.eu/, or contact us there and let’s discuss ideas together.
