SGL Group, along with a consortium of eight UK companies, has set up an 18 month research and development project to produce lightweight carbon fiber composite components for the automotive industry.
The project, entitled ‘Thermoplastic Overmoulding of Structural Composites for Automotive Applications’ (TOSCAA) aims to develop the technology of thermoplastic components for automotive serial production at all stage of production.
The overall TOSCCA expenditure will be £2.8 million with total funding of £2.1 million by Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency. SGL’s share of investment is just under £0.6 million, receiving 50% support and the company will supply carbon fiber composite raw materials based on a thermoplastic matrix. These materials include long fiber tapes and sheets together with short fiber compounds for overmoulding, recycled fiber materials and continuous fiber based materials
‘With TOSCAA our expertise in using carbon fibers in thermoplastic composites will grow and it will enable us to improve our support for all our customers using carbon fibers in the automotive sector as well as in other innovative applications,’ said Dr Grant Andrews, technology manager at SGL Group .
The other partners of the project are Surface Generation (advanced processing technology), Engenuity (design, modeling, testing), Nifco (injection molding expertise), University of Nottingham (composites process modeling), Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) at University of Sheffield (novel materials processing) and LMAT UK (cost modeling).
This story is reprinted from material from SGL, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.
