by cidaut | Mar 10, 2015 | Sin categoría
In a few weeks, the nine partners of METALMORPHOSIS will meet to celebrate the forth Steering Committee Meeting. The overall aim of the project is to develop a new range of novel metal-composite hybrid products for the automotive industry, using the new and innovative electromagnetic pulse technology, which is highly suitable for joining dissimilar metal products. The current application range of this technology will be extended during the project towards joining of composite and metals. Mechanical joints like bolting or riveting are reliable and widely accepted, but they create local stress concentrations which reduce the strength of the components by as much as 50%, enough to eliminate the envisaged weight gains in many designs. Bonded joints are effective, but require very secure engineering, clean production environments and well-trained personnel to ensure reliable joints. Moreover, companies, and specially SMEs, lack the skills to design and produce reliable bonded structures.
Attending to this scenario, METALMORPHOSIS proposes the design of three automotive components: a shock absorber, a brake pedal and a bumper support. Research efforts have been applied to optimize all the parameters of the joining process combining experiments and simulation by finite elements methodology. The project has recently passed its midline and is evolving as expected.
One day before the meeting, the Exploitation Strategy Seminar will be celebrated at CIDAUT facilities. The working day will start with an ”ice breaking” session and will cover all the aspects and activities of exploitation from the state of the art to the intellectual property rights. The ESS will be driven by an expert and all the partners will attend: Belgium Welding Institute, Centimfe, Cidaut, Ideko, Poynting, Regeneracija, Stam, Tenneco and Toolpresse. The main aim of this Exploitation Strategy Seminar is to have an expert evaluating the list of exploitable results and assessing the partners on the best possible strategies to exploit them, solving the possible ownership and conflicts that arise in the process.
by cidaut | Mar 9, 2015 | Sin categoría
On March 3rd, a diffusion event organized by the European Road Federation about works carried out on New Jersey project (New Generation of New-Jersey safe barriers using recycled materials and rubber form end-of-life tyres) took place. This event was held in Brussels, at the Committee of the Regions, the EU’s Assembly of Regional and Local Representatives, matching a meeting of the Environment, Climate Change and Energy (ENVE) group of the Committee of the Regions.
All New Jersey Project works were summarized by the Region of Madrid General Roads Directorate, as well as other Research projects supported by the Region of Madrid on Infrastructures.
Besides the main results of New Jersey Project, other Projects related with sustainable Infrastructures and efficiency were introduced by Acciona, Signus, and Cidaut Foundation, some of them related to LIFE + Program.
Cidaut Foundation made a review on Regional concerns of the Green eMotion project results, by showing a successful implementation of electric mobility schemes, as well as the standardization road map, as proposed by Green eMotion parners. Additionally, the Illumetric system for luminance and illumination efficiency assessment was introduced, showing several case samples of the way it can help reaching an effective public spending.
Besides these projects speeches, new Life Programme 2014-2020 details were introduced by DG ENVI European commission member, Mr Hervé Martin, as well as the new Public Procurement Directive, oriented to boost innovative solution on public contracts.
Next steps on New Jersey Project will be the implementation of one of the barriers developed on a Road on the Region of Madrid, dedicated to evaluate actual in-site performance. This implementation will be installed during March 2015 as a permanent barrier, and will be monitored the following months, for evaluating its performance. New Jersey Project is scheduled to end on July 2015.
by cidaut | Jan 19, 2015 | Sin categoría
Brussels (Belgium), 7 November 2014
The project ACOUTRAIN has come to its end, and its final event was held last November in Brussels, organised by UNIFE.
About 50 railway experts participated in the event, gathering a broad set of expertise in different knowledge fields like rolling stock manufacturers, testing laboratories, notified bodies for rolling stock homologation and representatives of the European Railway Agency.
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Nicolas Furio, Administrative Project coordinator, UNIFE
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Jean-Marie Bodson, Technical Director Standards & Regulations
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Philippe Citroën Director-General of UNIFE
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The main results of ACOUTRAIN were presented during the full day event, structured in 5 main sections:
- Session 1 – Basic tools for virtual certification.
Estelle Bongini from SCNF (technical project coordinator) started presenting an introduction to concepts of Virtual Testing developed in the project, establishing the initial framework to facilitate the understanding of the work carried out. In particular she gave a detailed description of the flowchart defined for the selection of the most appropriated virtual testing approach to use depending on the developed virtual vehicle. Afterwards Nathalie Cuny from Alstom and Giacomo Squicciarini from ISVR presented the software tool developed in the project, which name is the same as the project, and gave a quick in-site life demo on how to set up virtual vehicles with the new tool. Then they explained the work carried out for certification of the simulation tool, which can be applicable and extended to other simulation tools aiming to be used in the virtual testing framework.
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Estelle Bongini, Technical project coordinator
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Nathalie Cuny, WP4 leader, and Giacomo Squicciarini
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- Session 2 – Noise sources characterisation
David Thompson from ISVR gave indications on how to use the software tool TWINS, in particular with regards to wheel roughness, for which a dedicated study was developed to evaluate existing test methods. Ulf Orrenius from Bombardier reported about tests methods used to characterise individual noise sources of vehicles, like HVAC, motors, transformers… and eventually Benjamin Betgen from Vibratech described the research related to integration effects of noise sources and how existing calculation methods can represent it.
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David Thompson, WP2 leader
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Ulf Orrenius, WP3 leader
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Benjamin Betgen
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- Session 3 – Methods related to virtual certification
Transposition and separation procedures to separate rolling stock and track contributions to noise emission prediction were introduced by Michael Dittrich from TNO. Estelle Bongini clarified differences between the virtual testing approach and the simplified method in the Noise TSI. Application of virtual testing results for the evaluation of noise emission from railway infrastructures in the framework of the European Noise Directive was also studied.
- Session 4 – Example application: NAT Case study
The extensive measurement campaign carried out during the second year was presented by Maria Starnberg from Deutsche Bahn. Andre Bistagnino from Alstom described the modelling concept behind setting up virtual vehicles for virtual testing, for which the NAT train was taken as reference.
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Maria Starnberg, WP5 leader
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Andrea Bistagnino
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- Session 5 – Virtual testing within certification
Estelle Bongini and Maria Starnberg took the floor to describe one of the main project outcomes, the alternative procedures or approaches for virtual testing implementation, namely hybrid approach and extension of approval.
An interesting debate took place between presenters and the audience after each session, and input was given from the industry, notified bodies and ERA.
by cidaut | Jan 15, 2015 | Sin categoría
On December 5th, the final workshop of the Cenit TARGET project was held at AIRBUS premises in Getafe (Madrid). This research project, focused on smart and environmentally sustainable technologies for the production of structures made of composite materials, has been founded by the CDTI (Centro de Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial), organism depending of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.
Airbus facilities in Getafe (Madrid)
The event highlighted the main achievements reached by the 12 partner companies: Airbus Operations, Acciona Infraestructuras, Aernnova, Applus, Aciturri, Airbus Defence & Space, Hexel, Idec, MTorres, Sairem Ibérica, Tecnatom y TR Composites, along with 24 research organizations (Universities and Technology Centres).
Among them, CIDAUT has worked jointly with Aciturri in research activities to promote the development of advanced liquid composite moulding processes, seeking to reduce cycle times, energy consumption, scrap material and manufacturing costs associated to the production of structural components in Aeronautics, while improving product quality and increasing process robustness and repetitiveness. Processes that, if automated, would allow the effective production of complex structural components and the optimization of structures assembly.
The TARGET project, which commenced in 2010 with a 30 million Euros budget, was divided in nine work packages with the objective of researching and developing new smart and environmentally sustainable technologies for the production of composite structures. In particular, the research activities are focused on materials and processes that avoid using large autoclaves, and on functions integration; laying ground for new equipment and automation concepts that should lead to major cost savings.
TARGET main outcomes that deserve mention are: the development of advanced compaction and curing technologies of thermoset and thermoplastic materials out of autoclave; nanomaterials processing for their optimized integration in aeronautic laminates; the research in advanced resin infusion technologies and 3D carbon fabrics optimization; the development of new non-destructive inspecting techniques prior to curing; and the definition of integrated production systems, both in situ and in line, for the efficient manufacturing of composite components and structures.
by cidaut | Jan 15, 2015 | Sin categoría
The Green eMotion project is coming to its end next February. After four years of developing interoperable solutions for EV, analyzing standardization and infrastructure needs, and establishing the electric grids requirements, the project has reached its objective to support the roll out of EV in Europe.
Among other results, the project has successfully:
- Developed a marketplace and a clearing house that will allow Electric Vehicles (EV) drivers across Europe to connect their vehicles in different charging points.
- Carried out several standardization activities on communication and identification to propose new standards.
- Defined the infrastructure requirements, as well as the basis for the future requirements on the electric grids.
CIDAUT’s main role in the project has focused on coordinating the standardization activities, as well as to analyze the environmental impact of EV, to propose measures and policies to optimize the environmental benefits of EV.
On February 25-26 February 2015 the EU Stakeholder Forum will return for the 3rd edition that will once again bring together the three flagship electromobility projects of the European Commission: FREVUE, Green eMotion and ZeEUS. The venue of the meeting will be THON HOTEL BRUSSELS CITY CENTRE
Registrations are now open for the 3rd E-mobility Stakeholder Forum, registration is free and can be done here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/european-electromobility-stakeholder-forum-registration-12599167449, you are invited to join us to discuss on the project results. The EU’s three flagship electromobility projects will present their findings and plans on electromobility in Europe, covering topics such as smart technology, standardisation, electric urban freight and the benefits of electric vehicles to society and the environment. With Green eMotion drawing to a close, attendees will also have an opportunity to hear their final results and project conclusions.
The forum will be a mixture of parallel workshop sessions and high level round tables with participation from EU, national and regional political stakeholders as well and industry and research institutes. There will be three parallel workshop sessions throughout the event, so, every attendee is asked to register in advance which session to attend. The following topics will be covered:
Parallel workshops
Session 1 – Wednesday 25 February, 16.00-17.30
Business Models: Making the case – The integration of EVs into the business environment. Making the business case fit the reality of today. Examples of best practice
Selling the (new) reality – What is the role of both public and private sectors with regards to promoting e-mobility? Market segmentation – how EVs can ‘tick’ all boxes for all sectors?
Making the connection – From grid management to the vehicle on the street, how do we cater for widespread EV uptake? What are the strategies for making this work?
Session 2 – Thursday 26 February, 11.00-12.30
Integrating Urban Modality – Real world implementation of e-mobility in the urban environment
Fact from fiction – How EVs will solve the pressing environmental challenge – from the courts to the streets
More than just charging a battery – How smart technology is complimenting EV opportunities
Session 3 – Thursday 26 February, 13.30-15.00
The path to 2030 – By 2030, our cities should be well on the way to being fossil-fuel free. What is the view of the OEM’s to achieving this?
How to reach the goal? – Public policy has us on a trajectory to zero emission by 2050 – is that fast enough? What more should we be doing?
More than a connector – While the EU Directives have confirmed the connectors, there are more standards required to make the new system work
Finally, for more information on the event, as well as to download the information related to Green eMotion achievements and the deliverables, visit: www.greenemotion-project.eu
by cidaut | Jan 15, 2015 | Sin categoría
The first review meeting of Free-Moby project was held last December in Brussels. Free-Moby is a three years FP7 founded project focused on the implementation of easy to deploy micro fully electrical vehicles and city EVs.
Figure 1: Schedule of the Vehicle to Home (V2H) connection and communication to optimize the performance of the harvested energy.
All the partners involved in the activities developed during the first twelve months of the project were present in the meeting. Cidaut presented the results of the “Preliminary market study for premium vehicles”, where the new trends in the demands of the consumer for the electric vehicles have been analyzed. The evolution of the characteristics of premium vehicles has been studied, how the comfort and the reliability have given the leading role to the passive and active safety and how nowadays the entertainment and the information are growing in importance for the new customers. Most of the premium characteristics are related to the connection of the vehicle so a deep analysis of the way this connection works has been made.
Cidaut also presented the results on the evolution of the smart charging technology. Free-Moby promotes the integration of renewable energies in electromobility through the installation of photovoltaic panels at home and on the vehicle. One of the targets of the project is to optimize the performance of the harvested energy. The solution found in Free-Moby project consists on the combination of DC-DC charging and a partial swapping. The innovation introduced in the case of the DC-DC conductive charging is to use a compact high performance charger outside the vehicle. This solution is possible thanks to the development of a high efficient rack compatible for vehicle and home use. This rack is composed by four battery modules that can be easily removed for partial swapping allowing a high degree of interaction between home and vehicle. The batteries charged at home with solar energy can be used for electromobility applications and the vehicle can be plug to the home in emergency cases. In order to achieve this integration, the empowerment of the communication has been highlighted as crucial. During first year important research has been made on communication inside the vehicle and also on vehicle to everything.
by cidaut | Jan 15, 2015 | Sin categoría
The project HYACINTH of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking was launched last September. The project is coordinated by CENTRO NACIONAL DE EXPERIMENTACIONDE TECNOLOGIAS DE HIDROGENO Y PILAS DE COMBUSTIBLE. Other partners are I PLUS F FRANCE SARL, CENTRO DE INVESTIGACIONES ENERGETICAS, MEDIOAMBIENTALES Y TECNOLOGICAS-CIEMAT, RAZVOJNI CENTER ZA VODIKOVE TEHNOLOGIJE, ODC Services GMBH, ABERDEEN CITY COUNCIL. CIDAUT will also be involved as WP leader in order to determine the context influence over the stakeholders and to design the methodology to carry out the Social acceptance study.
The social acceptance by the general public, the stakeholders and the potential customers of Fuel Cell and Hydrogen (FCH) projects and applications across Europe is widely recognized as a key dimension in the sustainable implementation of FCH technologies. The document Fuel Cell and Hydrogen technologies in Europe: Financial and technology outlook on the European sector ambition 2014- 2020 by The New Energy World Industry Grouping (NEW-IG) considers the development of a good understanding of the conditions of societal acceptance as an essential element to support the establishment of these conditions in Europe. If hydrogen and fuel cell technologies are to play a significant role in Europe’s new energy and transport systems, a careful consideration of social acceptance issues is needed.
There is increasing realisation amongst policy makers and industry that public acceptance is a key consideration for any attempts to deploy and extend hydrogen technologies and infrastructures in Europe (EC, 2006). The development of hydrogen technologies in Europe will involve small-scale applications as well as large-scale infrastructures that may be influenced by the acceptance of the general public, stakeholders groups, the local community and the potential customers and users. Previous research on social acceptance has investigated the general levels of public understanding of FCH technologies in specific countries, but there is limited systematic evidence on the social acceptance of FCH technologies throughout Europe. The overall purpose of HYACINTH is to gain a deeper understanding of the social acceptance of hydrogen technologies across Europe as well as to develop a communication and management toolbox to be used in ongoing and future activities aiming at introducing hydrogen into mobility, stationary and energy or backup power supply systems.
Social acceptance of FCH technologies will be investigated via survey research with representative panels across Europe (up to 10.000 European citizens) and semi-structured interviews with 650 selected stakeholders in 10 countries. The design of the data gathering instruments will build upon the methodological and conceptual developments in the research of social acceptance of new technologies. The toolbox will provide the necessary background information and understanding of the current state of awareness and acceptance of FCH technologies by the general public and by stakeholder groups (industry, municipalities, researchers, fleet operators …). It will further provide the necessary tools to understand and manage expectations of future FCH projects and products in the transition phase, to identify regional challenges to the projects and to determine effective policy support measures.
Together the results from the research on the social acceptance of FCH technologies across Europe and the toolbox will support future projects to considerate the acceptance processes influenced by their activities; i.e. identifying regions of supportive acceptance, bottlenecks and challenges to be tackled, communication strategies and other means to actively manage the acceptance process FCH technologies.
by cidaut | Nov 7, 2014 | Sin categoría
The final conference of the European RESTRAIL project (Reduction of Suicides and Trespasses on Railway property) was held to present the lessons learnt within the project, its final results and the future way forward.
The European RESTRAIL (Reduction of Suicides and Trespasses on RAILway property) project was brought to a close on September 18th 2014 at the UIC premises at Paris, France. This was the occasion to learn more about this successful project, its results and the future way forward. Around 100 participants from Europe as well as other countries (such as USA and Australia), attended the final conference of this European project. RESTRAIL aimed at reducing the occurrence of suicides and trespasses on railway property and the costly service disruption caused by these events. One central objective of RESTRAIL was to provide the rail industry with the analysis of cost-effective prevention and mitigation measures as well as with recommendations and guidance materials to optimise the implementation of these measures. The final outcome is a toolbox to support the decision makers in taking practical steps to reduce suicides and trespasses and to mitigate the consequences once that these events occur.Mr Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, UIC Director-General, delivered the opening speech of these conferences, highlighting the role of different experts working together on both societal and technical issues focused on the reduction of trespassing and suicides. Afterwards, Mrs Ann Billiau, INFRABEL General Director, gave a keynote focused on an example from Belgium, explaining that it has the more dense and heavy network in the world with easily accessible tracks and thus dramatic consequences. Mrs Billiau referred to the toolbox as a dynamic and evolutionary tool, where stakeholders could find a general guidance explaining how to analyse the measures and their implementation.
The Conferences followed through with the WP leaders’ presentations about different lessons learnt during the project referred to:
- Qualitative analysis of suicide and trespasses on railway property
- Assessment of measures targeted to reduce railway suicides and trespasses.
- Mitigation of Consequences by Improving Procedures and Decision Making
- Implementation and monitoring process of field tests
After these presentations, the most anticipated moment came with the Poster session. The results, obtained from each one of the evaluations, were presented by the responsible RESTRAIL partners. A total of 11 posters were shown during one and a half hour. The eleven evaluated measures were: warning signs and posters; societal collaboration to prevent railway suicide; gatekeeper training course for personnel working in a railway environment; gatekeeper course “Contact with a (possibly) suicidal person”; restriction of access to fast lines, using mid-platform fencing and other restrictions to access; education in schools for 8–11 year old children; video enforcement and sound warning; railway safety education programme¸ a combination of measures at Aydin station; Computer Based Training (CBT) Module for Responding Bodies to mitigate post-incident consequences and Forward Facing CCTV. CIDAUT presented the results obtained from the evaluation carried out together with ADIF at the stopping place of the University of Valladolid (Valladolid, Spain); where several warning signs and posters were implemented in order to know their effectiveness on the reduction of trespassers.
After the Poster session; the RESTRAIL toolbox was presented as the final output of the project. This guidance material has been designed in order to:
- Lead decision-makers through the process of selecting from the wide range available of preventative and mitigation measures
- Provide more detailed guidance on the implementation of those measures and provide a framework for collecting and structuring information in order to feed an accessible and documented database on implementation measures and efficiency across the rail community.
More information referred to this RESTRAIL toolbox is accessible at http://www.restrail.eu/toolbox/
Lastly, the Conferences concluded with an open discussion of some ideas concerning possible follow-up research activity. One of the most appreciated by those present was initiating new and more elaborated field tests in the future: some of the most promising measures could be selected and evaluated in longer field tests, in order to collect more reliable data and assess the beneficial effect achieved statistically.
The RESTRAIL project ended on September 30th, 2014, however the partners will continue to work together and organize periodic workshops, so that current and future partners can share the most recent knowledge and best practices from their countries.
For more information on the RESTRAIL project, please visit http://www.restrail.eu/ or contact juapla@cidaut.es.
by cidaut | Nov 7, 2014 | Sin categoría
The HITECO project is close to its end. Last 30th October the final workshop was carried out in ENEA facilities, near Rome. At this event, the project coordinator and several partners showed the most important tasks developed along the project and the main results obtained; insights about the future of the CSP sector, sealing systems for novel energy devices and “Industrial development driven by technology; Solar applications”, were some of the topics presented and discussed during the Conferences. Finally a technical tour was performed to show the new absorber tube placed on the test facilities and the testing operation results (http://www.hitecoproject.com/?p=971).
The last one and a half year of the project, its efforts have been focused on the development and validation of a prototype of the new concept of absorber tube for CSP that had been designed during the project. This new concept was been tested in a laboratory under off-sun conditions to analyze the thermal stability of the components and the behaviour of the new concept of vacuum chamber, providing good results in all the tests performed.
Finally, the new product was scaled and mounted on a CSP test facility placed at ENEA facilities near Rome to perform the on-sun tests of the product.
These test facilities are composed of a parabolic trough solar collector of 100m length and a molten salts management system used as heat transfer fluid along the tests. During the last year the project tasks have been focused on the manufacturing of a 100m length absorber tube to place it on those tests facilities, and the necessary efforts to adapt the supporting structure and the molten salts management system to be used to the new concept of the absorber tube.
These tasks were completed successfully completed and the system validation tests started at the beginning of last summer. At this moment, the main conclusions drawn are the following:
- The new concept of absorber tube has been validated, and likewise the following goals have been confirmed: the thermo-mechanical functionality, the ability to achieve high vacuum levels and keep them under different operating conditions.
- The first tests performed showned similar heat losses to those with current tube designs; the differentiating effect is focused on the analysis of the composition and pressure of the vacuum chamber and, on the other hand, the reduction of the heat losses through the absorber tube supports. Regarding performance, as the new tube concept, it has more effective solar collection area, it is expected that in the coming weeks the improvement in performance of the new tube design compared to current designs can be confirmed.
Thanks to the HITECO project, CIDAUT has gained knowledge and a valuable insight into the CSP technologies, and has developed and validated simulation methodologies to analyze the optical, thermal and thermo-mechanical behaviour of parabolic-trough solar collectors. On the other hand, a useful analytical tool to characterize the performance of absorber tubes in parabolic solar collectors has been carried out and has been validated using CFD simulation tools and experimental results.
by cidaut | Nov 7, 2014 | Sin categoría
ACOUTRAIN Final Conference:
“Virtual certification of acoustic performance for rolling stock”
Brussels (Belgium), 7th November 2014
The ACOUTRAIN project is a EU-funded European R&D project focussed on the development of procedures and calculation tools to simplify the present noise TSI noise test. The 3-years project has 15 European partners and its main objective is to reduce the time and costs associated to the TSI Noise conformity assessment by developing procedures for acoustic virtual testing. The project is coming to an end in December 2014 and ACOUTRAIN Final Conference on the 7th of November 2014 was the perfect opportunity to present the project results.
Programme:The workshop was held at the Thon Hotel Bristol Stephanie, Avenue Louise 91-93, B-1050 Brussels, and started around 9:00AM with a welcome speech from Dr. Philippe Citroën, Director General of UNIFE. Mr Jean-Marie Bodson, Technical Director of Standards & Regulations at Alstom Transport introduced the project together with the technical coordinator, Mr Nicolas Furio from UNIFE.The main results of ACOUTRAIN were presented during a full day event, structured in 5 main sections:
- Session 1 – Basic tools for virtual certification.
- Introduction to concepts of Virtual Testing
- Virtual Vehicle, process flowchart (WP1)
- Software definition + demonstration (WP4)
- Validation of software (WP4)
- Session 2 – Noise sources characterisation.
- Rolling noise: how to use TWINS; wheel roughness (WP2)
- Vehicle Source characterisation measurements (WP3)
- Integration effects (WP3)
- Session 3 – Methods related to virtual certification.
- Separation/transposition procedures (WP2)
- Simplified method (WP1)
- Specific situations, other metrics, use for
- END (WP1)
- Session 4 – Example application: NAT Case study.
- Measurement Campaign
- Modelling Concept
- Results
- Session 5 – Virtual testing within certification.
- Procedures: ACOUTRAIN proposals
- Discussion
- Summary of outcomes, open issues
- (Recommendations for future research)
The Final Conference was an opportunity to discuss about virtual certification. A dedicated session for questions and answers was opened in the last part of each session.
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