Italian technological district for the engineering of polymeric and composite materials and structures
The project aimed to develop integrated real and virtual tools for the design and manufacturing of composite material components for industrial applications in the transportation sector, particularly the automotive and naval sectors. These methodologies and tools were developed through a synergy between two development environments: a virtual laboratory and a real laboratory in which a series of technologies were implemented that allowed the design and production of composite elements, once their performance and production volumes had been defined. The “building-block approach” scheme, already successfully used in some industrial applications, was followed. This approach involves designing the component by experimenting with the behavior of coupons and subcomponents to predict the local effects of each on the final behavior of the structure.
The validity of the identified technologies was verified through the development of:
Tools have been developed for the integrated design and manufacturing of composite components for automotive and marine applications.
For the automotive sector, a car tailgate was created entirely from composite material (fiberglass/carbon fiber), meeting all the required weight reduction requirements (30%), structural performance (30% increase in torsional stiffness), and the number of required molds.
For the marine sector, add-on naval panels with fireproof and anti-ballistic properties were created. Despite the nature of the materials, the demonstrators built met the fire resistance (class B30) and ballistic (to armor-piercing projectiles) requirements, achieving the added value of a 20% reduction in weight compared to conventional solutions.