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By Mark Kleis Thursday, Feb 17th, 2011 @ 4:42 a.m.
Audi is now the latest automaker to cement a major partnership with an outside firm in order to further develop and produce carbon fiber-based products for automotive use – a key step to reduce weight in vehicles for the near future
The last of the three German luxury automakers to make the move, Audi, chose a German company, Voith GmbH, in order to further its carbon fiber research and development. Audi says today’s announcement marks the start of a planned long-term and exclusive partnership between the two firms, in which the pair will focus on the development of automated production of fiber-reinforced materials.
The German luxury automaker made a point in emphasizing that the relationship will be focused on methods of high-volume production, a key challenge that must be met in order to keep production costs down. The use of fiber-based products and reinforcement is hardly new to the automotive realm, but its costly production has largely kept the technology out of major automakers, until the recent push for lower emissions and higher fuel economy forced automakers to address the challenge head-on.
“Fiber-reinforced polymers offer weight and strength advantages, which we have already put to use in the Audi R8 and the Audi RS 3, for instance. We want to use these advantages for high-volume production as well, and therefore the focus of our partnership with Voith is on specific car projects,” said Rupert Stadler, chairman of the board of management of Audi AG.
History of VoitH
VoitH has been developing and producing carbon fiber-reinforced polymers for years, mostly for industrial plant design, including lightweight construction components in paper machines or in drive engineering. But now, Audi hopes to takes the company’s experience with fiber reinforcement and apply it in a new direction with automotive applications, a move that will likely prove fairly simple for the firm.
Both Audi and VoitH also intend to research the manufacturing and recyclability of fiber-reinforced materials, as the two companies realize that recycling the byproducts of their efforts is an inevitable step in the automotive production and consumption chain.
SOURCE: LEFTLANEWS
Audi is now the latest automaker to cement a major partnership with an outside firm in order to further develop and produce carbon fiber-based products for automotive use – a key step to reduce weight in vehicles for the near future
The last of the three German luxury automakers to make the move, Audi, chose a German company, Voith GmbH, in order to further its carbon fiber research and development. Audi says today’s announcement marks the start of a planned long-term and exclusive partnership between the two firms, in which the pair will focus on the development of automated production of fiber-reinforced materials.
The German luxury automaker made a point in emphasizing that the relationship will be focused on methods of high-volume production, a key challenge that must be met in order to keep production costs down. The use of fiber-based products and reinforcement is hardly new to the automotive realm, but its costly production has largely kept the technology out of major automakers, until the recent push for lower emissions and higher fuel economy forced automakers to address the challenge head-on.
“Fiber-reinforced polymers offer weight and strength advantages, which we have already put to use in the Audi R8 and the Audi RS 3, for instance. We want to use these advantages for high-volume production as well, and therefore the focus of our partnership with Voith is on specific car projects,” said Rupert Stadler, chairman of the board of management of Audi AG.
History of VoitH
VoitH has been developing and producing carbon fiber-reinforced polymers for years, mostly for industrial plant design, including lightweight construction components in paper machines or in drive engineering. But now, Audi hopes to takes the company’s experience with fiber reinforcement and apply it in a new direction with automotive applications, a move that will likely prove fairly simple for the firm.
Both Audi and VoitH also intend to research the manufacturing and recyclability of fiber-reinforced materials, as the two companies realize that recycling the byproducts of their efforts is an inevitable step in the automotive production and consumption chain.
SOURCE: LEFTLANEWS
