Horizon 2020 funds composites manufacturing research project

A composites manufacturing research project involving Airbus has received €5m in funding from Horizon 2020.

The ‘Research on efficient integrated systems for the manufacturing of complex parts based on unidirectional tapes for the automotive and aeronautical’, or FORTAPE, project won funding under the 2014 Factories of the Future call. The research consortium, which is led by Centro Tecnológico de Automoción de Galicia, or CTAG, also involves CANOE, ARKEMA and IRT Jules Verne of France; FORD Aachen and Fraunhofer ICT of Germany; GRUPO ANTOLIN of Spain; MATEX VARESE of Italy; and OPTEL of Poland. The project will run for 36 months.

Together, the research players will focus on improving the manufacturing processes to obtain composite parts of the hybrid material of carbon and glass fibre unidirectional continuous tape reinforced composites. The project leaders hope to make such processes effective for full industrial implementation and will target the consumption of resources required and improving the level of automation. It is hoped that an efficient and optimised integrated system for the manufacturing of complex parts based on unidirectional fibre tapes with the minimum use of material and energy will be developed.

The tape is expected to provide wide-ranging benefits to the transport sector, in particular for the automotive and aeronautical industries. The project received funding under the topic ‘Manufacturing processes for complex structures and geometries with efficient use of material’.