SOCA - Sustainably Optimised Composite Automotive

Green mobility is key for a Net-Zero future. Polymer composites are a critical enabler to deliver lightweight solutions with ultimate performance. However, current manufacturing technologies are costly and inherently slow as well as limited in terms of fibre orientation distribution, given that current deposition and laying-up solutions (automated fibre placement - AFP, automated tape laying - ATL, tailored fibre placement - TFP) force straight/geodesic continuous fibre-paths. These issues result in labour intensive and prolonged manufacturing processes with low-productivity, increased energy consumption, production costs and environmental footprint, hindering wide adoption of composites in automotive. Also, whilst delivering lightweight solution in comparison to metal components, CFRP (Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic) have a higher embedded CO2e compared to their metallic counterparts. This is primarily due to the energy intensive process use in the production of the carbon fibre. Considering company and government commitment to a net-zero future it is instrumental to make efficient use of such material to balance components/vehicle structure mass, cost and CO2e targets.

The SOCA project aims to bring to market CO2e-optimised/net-zero and lightweight composite technologies and body-structure for automotive electric vehicles (EVs) using the award-winning skeleton/flesh concept, which was successfully demonstrated during previous projects. The skeleton/flesh concept includes the use of low-cost/low-performance ''flesh'' material strategically reinforced with structural unidirectional (UD) carbon fibre tapes acting as a ''skeleton'' for the manufacturing of fibre reinforced parts (FRP). This is possible through iCOMAT's Rapid Tow Shearing (RTS) technology the world first automated composite manufacturing process that can place wide composite tapes along curved paths without generating defects. Effective fibre-steering allows alignment of fibres with the primary load-paths and complex geometries required in automotive application, leading to ultra-lightweight cost-effective components of ultimate performance.

The SOCA consortium will develop and validate through structural testing and simulation both virtual and physical demonstrators using an existing body structure concept. The aim is to exploit the technology through low-volume in the short-term before expanding to higher volumes following successful demonstration and adoption in low-volume.

The implementation of SOCA technologies is expected to reduce body-structure environmental footprint, mass and can enable further vehicle mass reductions due to additionally induced mass savings in secondary systems such as batteries.

Furthermore, enabling the use of low-CO2e FRP from recycled fibre and optimised UD laying, will drastically reduce the environmental footprint of current automotive FRP component, specifically when extensively using carbon fibre.