"Every year, JEC rewards the best cutting-edge and ingenious projects using composites to their full potential in different categories. The JEC Innovation Awards program is emblematic and recognizes pioneers in composite innovation continuously reinventing the composites of tomorrow", says Franck GLOWACZ, Innovation Content Leader at JEC Group
The winners have been rewarded for their innovative solutions, in 10 categories:
- Aerospace
- Automotive - Exterior
- Automotive - Structural
- Electrical, Electronics & Appliances
- Industrial Equipment
- Marine
- Railway
- Renewable Energy
- Smart Composites
- Sports & Leisure
The awards ceremony took place place on November 14, 2019, at 5:30 pm at the Startup Branch, COEX. Ben Bassat, President and CEO of Plataine Avner opened the ceremony with a keynote about “The 4th industrial revolution: implementing IIOT and AI to composite materials and manufacturing”.
Automotive - Exterior
Evolution of Painting for CFRP Auto Body Panels
Hyundai Motor Group - South Korea
Associated Partners: Hyundai Motor Group (South Korea), Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (Japan), Sk Chemicals (South Korea), Hyundai Steel Company (South Korea), Hyundai Motor Group - Polymer Reseach Lab (South Korea)
This innovation sheds light on the challenges of Class A surface finish by on-line / in-line painting processes. It proposes a new method for producing a CFRP trunk-lid based on PCM and SMC process.
Key Benefits:
- CFRP on-line / in-line painting for mass production, solving ‘color matching’.
- Achieve Class A surface with the conventional automotive painting process.
- Energy saving in painting process introduced by low temp. curing 2K Clear coat.
- Light weight CFRP trunk-lid in 60% weight reduction by design optimization.
- High cycle production of 5 minutes cure - PCM Prepreg.
The CFRP parts should be applied to the well- defined engineering procedures with the qualified manufacturing process in fit-for-purpose facilities in the automotive industry. The autoclave process is the most common one for producing high-quality structures in composites industry, however, it has its drawbacks. The recognition of its shortcomings has designed to specially address the need for low-cost and high-quality manufacturing process. This new and multi-material trunk-lid is accepted two novel curing techniques (i.e. PCM and carbon fiber SMC) for the mass production. It has been adopted for the Genesis G70 (winning Motor Trend's 2019 Car of the Year award) sports, the new luxury sedan from Hyundai Motor Group. It leads to a substantial reduction in the weight (up to 60%, 6.4 kg weight saving compared to conventional
Automotive - Structural
Lightweight Engine Bracket using Hybrid Processing
Hanyang University - South Korea
https://sites.google.com/site/hyucomposites/
Associated Partners: Kolon Plastics (South Korea), Hyundai Motors (South Korea)
Lightweight and noise-damping engine bracket is developed using compression molding of chopped and Continuous UD Carbon Prepreg to replace the complex shaped bulky and heavy automotive engine bracket.
Key Benefits:
- 80% lighter than steel
- Recyclable using thermoplastic materials
- Hybrid process for high stiffness, strength according to complex shape
- Excellent damping effect
- Fast production cycle time
The conventional steel engine bracket is needed to support the Engine and reduce the noise and vibration. Since the automotive engine bracket is very complex in shape, it is difficult to manufacture them using continuous fabrics such as pregreg, woven and NCF. Thermoplastic Carbon UD tapes of KOLON PLASTIC’s Carbon/PA6 are chopped for the major portion of the complex engine bracket and UD Carbon tapes is inserted to enhance the stiffness and strength and achieve both moldability and stiffness. Very importantly, the developed product can absorb the vibration and noise, as good as the original steel product. To be suitable for mass production, compression molding process is developed, and the cycle time is reduced to less than 10 minutes. This short cycle process significantly contributes the lower price of the mass production. The most important feature of the current product is its lightweight, i.e. 80 % weight reduction of the conventional steel product.
