Research institute, Empa has presented a briefing about the development of lightweight materials in the automobile industry. According to its report, the use of reinforced composite materials in the automobile industry is likely to grow in the future.
Empa’s Advanced Fibers Laboratory is researching and developing active, liquid filled fibers in the «Rheocore» project.
The report stated that leading automobile companies such as BMW and VW have bought shares in SGL Carbon. Equally German car manufacturer, Daimler has also entered into a joint venture with Toray Industries which is a producer of carbon fibre. Daimler has already used lightweight materials for its Mercedes SLR McLaren Supersport car and completed production of 140,000 axle front axle leaf springs for the model Mercedes Sprinter.
Carbon fibre is also used in high value applications such as yacht construction. The Empa Rheocore project is focused at improving the properties of composite materials by developing fibres which have branched channels of liquid. The expected result is fibres which are bent slowly, but at the same react fast to rapid action forces. The production of such fibres however requires a lot of effort. However, the research team has already come up with mathematical solutions and completed trials using models. They will manufacture a prototype of the spinning nozzle in the near future.