Substitution of conventional materials for lightweight construction with wood hybrids based on Albasiaholz
SuMatHrA
Lightweight construction continues to play a key role in increasing efficiency in the transport sector and in electromobility in particular. However, the lightweight materials currently used, with their high CO2 footprint during production, are often at odds with sustainability and resource conservation.
One way to resolve this conflict is to use sustainable lightweight materials such as wood. Due to its low density in combination with excellent mechanical properties, albasia, the wood of the sengon tree (bot.: "Paraserianthes falcataria"), is of particular interest here and offers great potential for sustainable lightweight construction, especially in combination with other materials as hybrid and sandwich materials.
In the "SuMatHrA" project (acronym for substitution of conventional materials for lightweight construction with wood hybrids based on albasia wood), which is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK) via the Jülich Research Centre as the project sponsor over a period of three years , four partners from industry and science as well as a non-profit organisation have joined forces to drive forward the development of innovative wood hybrid material systems for lightweight construction. A central aspect of this is the substitution of CO2 -intensive materials used in vehicle and lift construction. By characterising the hybrid material systems and developing numerical simulation models, the sustainable materials should find their way into future electromobility applications.
The consortium formed for the "SuMatHrA" project consists of the following partners:
Alfred Kiess GmbH
Broszeit GmbH
German Aerospace Centre e.V.
FairventuresWorldwide FVW gGmbH
Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft
The Institute of Vehicle Concepts at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) and its "Materials and Process Applications for the Complete Vehicle" department specialise in transferring new and complex material solutions into innovative applications based on a comprehensive overall understanding of the "vehicle". As part of the "SuMatHrA" research project, DLR supports the project partners throughout the entire product development process, from conceptualisation, design and simulation to testing and final evaluation.
