The body of the BioConcept race car is made almost completely from bio-composite materials: doors, mudguards, bonnet, bumpers, wings and the boot lid are made from natural fibre reinforced plastics.
In 2006, race car team Four Motors GmbH of Reutlingen, Germany, used a racing car with a body shell made using plant fibres for the first time. The design of the first-generation BioConcept car was based on a Mustang GT RTD. In 2009 the concept will be developed further in a Renault Mégane Trophy 09. In cooperation with the Nachwachsende Rohstoffe eV specialist agency and the German Aviation and Aerospace Centre (DLR), its multi-part glass fibre body shell is currently being replaced step by step with parts based on natural fibres. The natural fibres are combined with liquid bioplastic material (linseed oil acrylate) in a mould to produce parts that are capable of withstanding the motor sports environment.
Both cars will take part in the BFGoodrich long-distance championships and the international Nürburgring 24-hour race.
Besides their environmental advantages, natural fibre based composites are lighter in weight than the glass fibre reinforced plastics they replace, are stable, and do not splinter in crashes.
Both generations of the BioConcept Car – the Mustang and the Renault Mégane Trophy – were on display at COMPOSITES EUROPE 2009, in Stuttgart, Germany, on 27-29 October.
The Composites Pioneer Award presentation ceremony will be held on the first day of the event. Team manager Thomas von Löwis received the award. It was presented by the COMPOSITES EUROPE trade fair and the international composites magazine Reinforced Plastics.
This is the second time the COMPOSITES Pioneer Award has been presented. The first time was in 2007, when the winners were designers Prof. Dr Richard Eppler and Rudolf Lindner who, 50 years previously, had built the world’s first aircraft made from fibre reinforced plastics.
