Abstract

Automotive industry is a sector where the technologic development aims to fulfil high standard requirements regarding safety, energy efficiency and environmental pollution. The development and application of technical textiles as a reinforcement for polymeric matrixes to form high performance composite materials that comply with automotive industry standards has been increasing. Nowadays composite materials are an integral part of vehicles bringing advantages both in terms of mechanical performance and lightweighting. The current technical textiles applied in this sector focus on high mechanical performance through the application of fibres such as carbon fibre, aramid and glass fibre, these textiles combined with thermoplastic materials result in recyclable composites that reduce environmental pollution. This work was developed in the framework of TexBoost project co-financed by COMPETE 2020 – the Operational. Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalization, under Portugal 2020 through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). TexBoost PPS3 (AN1/AN2) main objective is the development of smart and hybrid textile structures that when integrated in the matrix result in not only high mechanical performance composites but also smart composites with structural health monitoring capabilities, allowing the evaluation of potential structural fails and necessity of vehicle part replacement (preventive maintenance of automotive parts). Therefore, different types of sensing fibres are being developed, characterized and weaved in a textile structure with carbon fibres to be further integrated in polymeric matrixes. All the developed composites are being characterized both in terms of mechanical and electrical performance. 

Abstract

OASIS Composites Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB) is a single-entry point for scale-up of Innovative Smart lightweight polymer matrix and aluminium composite materials and components. OASIS offers technological and business support services for accelerated innovation studies and success in industrialisation, market penetration and commercialisation of nano-enabled products (NEPs). IGESTEK (Spain) is a leading company in the development of technology projects: specialized in lightweight solutions using plastics and composite materials. In collaboration with Tecnalia (Spain), IPC (France), University of Patras (Greece), UCLM (Spain), TMBK (Poland) and AMIRES (Czech Republic) they identified an opportunity for the development of a heating system based on buckypapers (MWCNT films) for automotive exterior bodywork panels manufactured using recyclable thermoplastic composite material via a press moulding method. Heater integration was screened using resistive heating, simple mechanical and microscopy analysis of the test panels. Coupon panels were manufactured (using optimised processing conditions) for thermal analysis. A prototype mould was designed and manufactured for the fabrication of representative demonstrator parts (1:3 scale car bonnet panel). Electrothermal analyses of four heater configurations were calculated, leading to the selection of two final demonstrator configurations. Ten functioning demonstrator panels were successfully manufactured based on these two designs. Thermal assessment of the integrity of the heaters was carried out via electrical resistive heating. The results of the collaboration confirmed that NEP based thin film heaters could successfully be integrated into thermoplastic composite panels via a compression thermoforming process.