The Tucana project is a four-year programme to make the UK a world leader in low-carbon technology, helping prevent 4.5 million tonnes of CO2 emissions between 2023 and 2032 by accelerating mainstream use of electric vehicles and making vehicles lighter to both decrease tailpipe emissions and reduce the energy consumption of electrified powertrains.

The research will allow Jaguar Land Rover to develop lightweight vehicle and powertrain structures by replacing aluminium and steel with composites capable of handling the increased torque generated by high-performance batteries while improving efficiency and reducing CO2 impact.

The development of new lightweight body structures to complement the latest zero-emissions powertrains will be key as the electrification of our vehicle range continues.

Jaguar Land Rover aims to increase vehicle stiffness by 30 per cent, cut weight by 35kg and further refine the crash safety structure through the strategic use of tailored composites, such as carbon fibre. Reducing the vehicle body weight will allow the fitting of larger batteries with increased range – without impacting CO2 emissions.

Advanced composites offer significant reductions in vehicle weight, and by 2022, Jaguar Land Rover expects to have developed a fleet of prototype Tucana test vehicles.

The consortium, led by Jaguar Land Rover, brings together world-leading academic and industry partners including the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), Expert Tooling & Automation, Broetje-Automation UK, Toray International UK, CCP Gransden and The Centre for Modelling & Simulation (CFMS).

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While the benefits of carbon fibre have long been known, production costs can be up to 10 times more than that of traditional materials, and difficulty in shaping CFRP parts has hampered the mass production of automotive components made from the material.

Nissan says it has found a new approach to the existing production method known as compression resin transfer moulding. The existing method involves forming carbon fibre into the right shape and setting it in a die with a slight gap between the upper die and the carbon fibres. Resin is then injected into the fibre and left to harden.

Nissan’s engineers developed techniques to accurately simulate the permeability of the resin in carbon fibre while visualising resin flow behaviour in a die using an in-die temperature sensor and a transparent die. The result of the successful simulation was a high-quality component with a shorter development time.

Executive Vice President Hideyuki Sakamoto said in the live presentation on YouTube that the CFRP parts would start being used in mass-produced sport-utility vehicles in four or five years time, thanks to a new casting procedure for the poured resin. The cost savings come from shortening the production time from about three or four hours to just two minutes, Sakamoto said.

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The new architecture, designed specifically to accommodate new hybrid powertrains, has been entirely engineered, developed and produced in-house at McLaren’s £50m Composites Technology Centre in South Yorkshire, opened back in 2018.

The new flexible vehicle architecture utilises new processes and techniques to strip out excess mass, reduce overall vehicle weight, while also further improving safety attributes. It will underpin the next generation of McLaren hybrid models as the supercar company enters its second decade of series vehicle production.

Hundreds of pieces of carbon fibre cloth are cut for every chassis, the shape and orientation of each cut piece is controlled by software to optimise the strength and weight of the finished chassis. Lasers guide the alignment of the cut material into 2D Preforms.

These preforms are then loaded into McLaren’s own resin transfer moulding process where the resin is infused while the parts are clamped together under force. The moulded lightweight chassis is then removed from the press and machined to accept the mounting of multiple components during the vehicles final assembly.

The first new McLaren hybrid supercar to be based on the all-new architecture will launch in 2021.

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Primarily used in the production of linen, flax is an incredibly versatile plant that has been around for millions of years. It differs from many biomaterials in that it’s ideal for use in crop rotation programmes and can be grown without directly competing with food crops. Flax is a CO2-neutral raw material and its fibres are biodegradable. At the end of the seat’s life, for example, it can be ground down into a new base material or thermally recycled without residual waste, rather than end up in landfill.

Inspired by the thin veins on the back of leaves, Bcomp’s powerRibs technology provides a three-dimensional grid structure on one side of the seat, which is then used to reinforce the spun and woven flax fibre reinforcement fabric, ampliTex. Made by twisting flax fibres to form a thick yarn, the powerRibs act as a backbone to the ampliTex flax fabric that is bonded to it

With the introduction of the new regulation in 2019, the seat now forms part of the driver’s weight budget, so it’s over-engineered as a result

McLaren saw a clear opportunity to use this technology in this area of the car based on the current F1 technical regulations. Since 2019, a minimum driver weight of 80 kg has been mandated. And if a driver weighs less than that, ballast must be used to bring them up to the minimum weight. But instead of allowing this ballast to be placed in other areas of the car, which could improve weight distribution, it must be located within the immediate area of the driver’s seat.

While the environmental benefits are clear, the mechanical properties of flax make it an attractive renewable raw material for high-performance composites. The tubular structure of flax fibres provides low density and high stiffness, which affords the opportunity to reduce weight while simultaneously improving vibration damping, as well as resistance to breakage, torsion and compression.

Flax fibres are 9% lighter than any equivalent carbon material and offer significantly better vibration damping. 

Greater vibration absorption and impact resistance make the natural fibre material well suited to use in the driver’s seat. It improves comfort and reduces vibration in the cockpit, which can have a fatiguing effect on drivers and if the seat were to break, unlike carbon fibre, it’s not prone to brittle fracture and splintering.

The ductile fracture behaviour of natural fibre composites opens the door to other possibilities too. One of the most spectacular, but equally dangerous, aspects of an on-track incident is the shards of carbon fibre that result from a collision. Not only do they present an immediate risk to the drivers, but they are also notorious for causing punctures and leaving a driver’s race in tatters. By using natural fibre composites in other areas of the car, such as front wing endplates and the floor, it’s possible to reduce carbon fibre debris and therefore the risk of punctures.

The cost of materials is going to be a big focus and the use of natural fibre composites has the potential to help in this area

With a budget cap set be introduced from 2021, many F1 teams will need to reduce costs while maintaining and improving performance – no mean feat in a sport where, typically, a team can pursue more development routes the more resource it has available. Teams are going to have to work even smarter, McLaren says that using these natural composite solutions has seen a reduction in raw material cost by up to 30% compared to traditional carbon fibre.

Most of the moulds used to make parts of the car are made from carbon fibre composite because of its low thermal expansion. However, flax fibres also possess this property, potentially making them a suitable tooling material for moulding performance parts that are made from standard composites. So even if the part being produced isn’t made from natural fibre materials, the tool to produce it can be – allowing us to reduce the cost of mould tools and our carbon footprint.

With so many potential applications, McLaren sees the natural fibre racing seat as just the beginning and will continue to work with Bcomp to identify other components that can be replaced. The seat was run in pre-season testing without any problems and McLaren hope to be racing with the Bcomp flax seats in the near future.

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Due to the weight savings made the vehicle’s payload is boosted by almost 50% compared to similar vehicles meaning more goods can be carried per vehicle, per journey. While significant improvements in fuel economy too, thanks to the aerodynamic technologies applied to the design.

The launch is the result of more than 10 years of research by British engineering firm Penso and a £16.3 million investment – half from Penso and half from government matched-funding via the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) and Innovate UK. This has helped to fund the installation of a flexible automated robot assembly line housed in a brand new 50,000 square foot facility.

From the outset, we knew carbon fibre was going to be the solution, but we also knew others had tried this approach previously, and because it was eye-wateringly expensive – partly due to the lengthy and complex production process to manufacture each part – the costs simply hadn’t stacked up.

In order to get the costs down the company constructed the bodies using the same sandwich panel technology they had used to create a press formed composite rail door for the London Underground. By moving away from manufacturing parts in an autoclave, and press forming the panels instead, they could cut the time it takes to construct each part from hours to minutes.

The newly created robot assembly line could create a finished body every 42 minutes, much quicker than the two-weeks a typical manual build takes with carbon fibre composites. The new van bodies have a 10-year lifespan (and structural warranty) and can be moved to a new chassis after 5 years, which makes them compatible with future electric and hybrid vehicles.

With these savings in fuel, labour and operating costs, Penso estimates that a typical supermarket fleet could save up to £6,700 per van, per year. Asda will be putting these vans on the road throughout the country focussing on areas where drivers have increased mileage to reach customers in remote areas such as parts of the East Coast.

This latest move is part of Asda’s commitment to making carbon reduction a priority across the business as it looks to tackle climate change. The retailer has already reduced its energy usage by 20% in stores and uses the same amount of energy as it did in 2005, despite its estate being 200% bigger.

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BMW first started the additive manufacturing of prototype parts back in 1991, for concept vehicles. By 2010, plastic-and metal-based processes were being rolled out, initially in smaller series, to produce items such as the additively manufactured water pump wheel in the DTM race cars. Further series production applications followed from 2012 on, with a range of components for the Rolls-Royce Phantom, BMW i8 Roadster (2017) and MINI John Cooper Works GP (2020), which contains no less than four 3D-printed components as standard.

Last year, the company produced about 300,000 parts by additive manufacturing. The Additive Manufacturing Campus currently employs up to 80 associates and operates about 50 industrial systems that work with metals and plastics. Another 50 systems are in operation at production sites around the world.

Access to the latest technologies is gained through long-standing partnerships with manufacturers and universities, and by successfully scouting for industry newcomers. Back in 2016, BMW i Ventures invested in the Silicon Valley-based company Carbon, whose Digital Light Synthesis technology achieved a breakthrough in planar processes, using a planar light projector to enable super-fast component production.

Further investments were made in 2017, when the company became involved with Desktop Metal, a start-up specialising in additive manufacturing of metal components and developing innovative, highly productive manufacturing procedures. Close collaborations with Desktop Metal continue. In the same year, BMW i Ventures invested in the US start-up Xometry, a platform for on-demand manufacturing.

The latest investment was in the German start-up ELISE, which allows engineers to produce component DNA containing all the technical requirements for the part, from load requirements and manufacturing restrictions to costs and potential optimisation parameters. ELISE then uses this DNA, along with established development tools, to automatically generate optimum components.

The pre-development unit of the Additive Manufacturing Campus optimises new technologies and materials for comprehensive use across the company. The main focus is on automating process chains that have previously required large amounts of manual work, to make 3D printing more economical and viable for use on an industrial scale over the longer term.

The Additive Manufacturing Campus is also making a contribution to series production of plastic parts. In the POLYLINE project, the focus is on aspects such as digitally linking process steps, and the development of a consistent quality assurance methodology for the entire process chain. The Additive Manufacturing Campus will provide the backdrop for the project’s consortium of 15 partners to develop and test a future-proof, fully linked, automated production line for plastic components. Findings from the project are expected to help reduce manufacturing costs by as much as 50 percent, making a vital contribution to series production. In addition, integrated quality assurance methods will increase the stability of technologies and make manufacturing more sustainable.

Along with component manufacturing, the team at the Campus provides personal consultations and training courses for BMW facilities around the world that all manufacture 3D-printing components already, be it for prototypes or production, or as country-specific parts for customers.

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The DTM (Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters) is a touring car series sanctioned by the German motorsports federation. The series is mostly based in Germany but has rounds elsewhere including Belgium and the Netherlands, Manufacturers taking part in the series include Audi and BMW while the vehicles used are based on mass-produced road cars.

The first natural fibre parts using bcomp’s flax fibre technologies have already been validated by BMW Motorsport and Audi Sport during the last DTM tests in Jerez (SPA) and Vallelunga (IT). As a result, the technologies are being introduced into mandatory parts and the technical regulations to enable a direct material changeover from carbon fibre to natural fibres on further applications.

With high exposure to contact, the DTM shoebox is a typical motorsport bodywork wear part which needs to be replaced or repaired after almost every race. With Bcomp’s natural fibre technologies the part can achieve the same weight as with carbon fibre while additionally taking advantage of the anti-splintering and environmental benefits.

Bcomp’s patented powerRibs reinforcement grid, has the same weight as carbon fibre parts, but significantly lower the eco-footprint, improving cost-efficiency, and eliminating the risk of sharp carbon fibre debris.

Further parts to showcase the potential to transfer the sustainable lightweighting solutions from race to road are already in development and will be introduced by the DTM and Bcomp through-out the season.

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Although full specs are yet to be revealed, we do know that the coupe will feature a carbon fibre chassis designed by the company’s Composites division, while under the hood the car will be powered by a 480 bhp V8 engine channelled to the rear wheels through a six-speed manual gearbox.

Most of the Legend 480’s components will be assembled at the Group’s existing 60,000sq ft factory in Derby and is scheduled for release in September for around £90,000 according to Top Gear.

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Each car starts with the steel tub of an original Mustang body which is then fitted with all-new carbon fibre body panels. A 3D digital model is made of the car and a five-axis CNC machine cuts the moulds, and then plugs and panels are pulled using aerospace-grade pre-preg carbon fibre.

The moulded carbon fibre body panels are cured using an in-house autoclave. The result is the world’s first officially-licensed Shelby Mustang that is lighter and stronger than an all-steel body and has perfect carbon fibre weave alignment.

Since 1998, Mr Shelby believed that carbon fibre would be the future of American sports car manufacturing. We believe the introduction of a carbon-fibre GT500 Mustang and Cobra is a natural next step in the evolution of these iconic vehicles.

 Neil Cummings, Co-CEO of Carroll Shelby International

GT500CR models are available with several engine options, ranging from a 490-horsepower Ford Performance Gen 3 5.0L Coyote crate engine up to a 900-horsepower, a hand-built 427-cubic-inch engine with an intercooled ProCharger supercharger. All Shelby GT500CR models are equipped with a Tremec five-speed manual transmission and a stainless-steel MagnaFlow performance exhaust.

According to Classic Restorations, SpeedKore has 3D-scanned a complete GT500CR and is currently in production making a prototype with the first vehicle scheduled to be finished in June.

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Inside features a bespoke diamond patterned satin chrome aluminium jewellery pack that sits amongst the obsidian black leather. Carbon fibre machined from solid to create a technical finish clads the central console and door inserts, while a single piece of herringbone carbon fibre can be found throughout the floor of the car’s storage area.

The DBX’s cabin is a unique carbon fibre finish used for the car’s floating centre console and door trims. The central piece is machined from a solid block consisting of 280 individual layers of carbon fibre, laid meticulously by hand. After a 12-hour curing process, 90-hours of five-axis milling are required to deliver the stunning finish shown today.

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