Public Funding for Innoval Technology Limited

The CirConAl project will provide the lowest embodied CO2 content aluminium alloys for the automotive industry, enabling light weighting at ultra-low embodied CO2 content of <1.0 tonne of CO2e per tonne of aluminium with, in time, a reduction to <0.5 tonnes/tonne and then to <0.2 tonnes/tonne. This will be achieved by taking a strategic approach to the aluminium scrap market in the UK, where presently most of this key resource is exported, through targeted sorting, blending and refining technologies as the main metal input to a state-of-the-art automotive billet cast house producing a new generation of highly recyclable aluminium alloys.

The BACpack feasibility study examines the potential to recycle low carbon scrap for the manufacture of aluminium sheet for packaging and other large-scale applications within the UK. This is an essential development for the aluminium industry as a key part of UK's foundation metals industry for both its future productivity and sustainability. The study will provide the technical and economic verification of the route for the UK's aluminium industry to re-shore the manufacturing of aluminium sheet packaging products that are all presently imported into the UK. This will be based on efficient manufacturing processes and the use of UK based recycled low carbon aluminium as its feedstock. This will make the manufacturing of aluminium sheet packaging products in the UK both globally competitive and at the same time environmentally friendly particularly as the UK decarbonises its electricity generation capacity. The feasibility study proposed is firmly based on both resource and energy efficiency as it will make use of a low carbon recycled aluminium feedstock that is mainly lost to export today. The proposed closed loop recycling entity would take a significant proportion of the up to 800 kt UK based end-of-life aluminium scrap which is currently exported each year and convert this in the UK using the most efficient casting and rolling technology, to provide high added value aluminium sheet for both closure sheet stock and for can body sheet stock for supply to UK manufacturers of both cans and closures at advantageous cost, based on the maximum use of ultra-low embedded carbon recycled aluminium which has a low carbon intensity of 0.5 tonnes of CO2/tonne compared to the world average for primary aluminium of 17.0 tonnes of CO2/tonne; thus securing the existing UK canning and food industry but also enabling this to grow, as it must, in moving food and beverage packaging away from plastic. The study will be led by Keen Ltd as part of its longer-term plan to establish capacity for sustainable aluminium sheet manufacture in the UK for supply to the packaging, construction and automotive sectors. Keen has partnered with Innoval a world-leading aluminium technical consultancy for aluminium processing and product development.

Most of the plastic manufactured has been discarded as waste, causing environmental and social damage of €2.2 trillion/yr and pollutes the oceans whereas aluminium has a high recycling rate that for beverage cans, is 49.8% in the US compared to 29.2% for plastic (PET) and 26.4% for glass. Bloomberg reports that Nestle SA and Unilever have announced plans to make packaging recyclable or reusable and Coca-Cola will package its Dasani water brand into aluminium cans. With high-speed canning lines producing up to 2,400 cans/minute 24/7 even small improvements in efficiencies and material downgauging can generate significant savings. Unimaq and Innoval will work together on this project to develop a novel process which promises significant improvements in can body manufacturing efficiencies. In conducting this project Unimaq will partner with Innoval Technology who have specific expertise in aluminium metallurgy and the thermo-mechanical processing of can making alloys.

Innovative high strength aluminium alloys, novel processing, joining and assembly technologies have been developed for use in light weight crash resistant battery enclosures and for the integration of such structures into ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEVs). The optimum combination of extrusions and sheet can provide architectural flexibility in meeting both the protective structures and the thermal management requirements which can control battery operating temperatures to precise levels reducing, the risk of thermal runaway and optimising battery pack operating temperatures during charging and driving to reduce energy losses. The novel enclosure architectures will provide scalable design and manufacturing concepts utilising agile multi-platform cells on the same production equipment, engineered to meet variable volume demands, while providing a kit of parts for local assembly and export options. This enables the introduction of multiple EV platforms as OEM technology demonstrators, critical to supporting OEM acceleration to high-volume electrification programs. Without such a solution, the high capital and manufacturing costs of the current production methods act as a significant barrier to low, then medium and high-volume production, thereby delaying the electrification timetable. The proposed solution further de-risks the supply chain by providing scale-up to high volume production by keeping capital costs to a minimum. This provides significant advantages in manufacturing and assembly costs and set up time whilst meeting current legislative requirements, providing the opportunity to define new standards of safety, crash management and energy efficiency. The ALIVE project will design, develop, assemble and extensively test aluminium intensive prototype enclosures and full-scale demonstrator enclosures for BMW and Volvo electric vehicles, forming an integrated pathway to UK battery pack production by providing the light weight enclosures aligned to current and future battery module technologies and power densities. The project aims to take another major step with disruptive high strength aluminium alloys and their processing and joining technologies, enabling new enclosure design concepts for the manufacture of both vehicle integration structures and battery enclosures for a new generation of lightweight hybrid and electric vehicles for the UK market that will have a major impact on the UK government's carbon reduction targets for the UK vehicle fleet. The project will establish a UK based manufacturing facility for world leading cost-efficient structural aluminium battery enclosures providing an on-shore resource for BEV and PHEV component manufacture, with the manufacturing concept capable of providing efficient transportation of parts for export assembly.

Innovative and ground breaking high strength aluminium alloys and processing technologies have been developed for use in light weight crash resistant battery enclosures and for the integration of such structures into ultra-low emissions vehicles (ULEVs). The combination of extrusions, HFQ sheet and castings can form both the protective structures and can provide novel thermal management systems which can control battery operating temperatures to precise levels reducing the risk of thermal runaway and optimising battery pack operating temperatures during driving to reduce energy losses. This provides significant advantages in manufacturing and assembly costs/set up time whilst meeting current legislative requirements, providing the opportunity to define new standards of safety, crash management and energy efficiency. Both energy and power density of battery systems are increased by reducing battery enclosure weight by using an aluminium alloy intensive architecture, combining innovative design and advanced manufacturing processes. The project aims to take another major step with disruptive high strength aluminium alloys and their processing and joining technologies, enabling new enclosure design concepts for the manufacture of both vehicle integration structures and battery enclosures for a new generation of lightweight hybrid and electric vehicles for the UK market that will have a major impact on the UK government's carbon reduction targets for the UK vehicle fleet. The project will design, develop a recyclable aluminium intensive components for a test enclosure and for full scale demonstrators of battery enclosure for vehicles specified by the two major global OEM's that are project partners. The longer term intention is to establish a UK based manufacturing facility for world leading cost efficient aluminium battery enclosures based on the intensive use of fully recyclable aluminium alloys in order to provide an on-shore resource for ULEV component manufacture.

Constellium has developed innovative and ground breaking high strength aluminium extrusion alloys for use in light weight crash resistant vehicle structures for integration of battery enclosures into ultra low emissions vehicles (ULEVs). The extrusions can form both the protective structures and can provide novel thermal management systems which can control battery operating temperatures to precise levels reducing the risk of thermal runaway and optimising battery pack operating temperatures during the urban cycle to reduce energy losses. This provides significant advantages in manufacturing costs/set up time whilst meeting current legislative requirements, providing the opportunity to define new standards of safety, crash management and energy efficiency. Both energy and power density of battery systems are increased by reducing battery enclosure weight by using an aluminium extrusion intensive architecture, combining innovative extrusion shape design and advanced manufacturing processes with the high strength aluminium extrusion alloys. The project aims to take another major step with disruptive high strength aluminium extrusion alloys and process technology, coupled with bespoke section design for the manufacture of vehicle integration structures and battery enclosures for a new generation of lightweight hybrid and electric vehicles for the UK market that will have a major impact on the UK government's carbon reduction targets for the UK vehicle fleet. The project will design, develop extruded components for prototype vehicle integration systems and for battery enclosures for Gordon Murray Design for an electric vehicle based on the aluminium intensive version of their i-Stream vehicle under development in the IUK CAAHS project. The second development in the project will be for vehicle integration and battery box enclosures, for the JLR I-Pace. The longer term intention is to establish a UK based manufacturing facility for world leading cost efficient aluminium extruded sections based on the intensive use of fully recyclable aluminium alloys in order to provide an on-shore resource for both extrusion and ULEV component manufacture.

RACEForm project is designed to catalyse cost-effective light-weighting of high volume vehicle platforms using a robust UK supply chain.The enabling technology, Hot Form Quench HFQ® was developed in Imperial College & the University of Birmingham & has a unique capability to produce, at high speed, complex high-strength aluminium components for body-in-white & chassis applications. The RACEForm projects takes this unique technology, proven for niche vehicle applications, through to a readiness for application in high volume SUV & electric vehicles by combining the expertise of Impression Technologies (who own the HFQ Ò technology), Gestamp (a global leader in automotive stampings), Innoval (a leading aluminium technology consulting company), Imperial College & Brunel University. The project will aim to reduce production cost via cycle time improvements, validate joining & crash performance & even develop an approach for utilising recycled aluminium for critical structural components delivering lower CO2 emissions, embedded carbon content of the vehicle, production cost & (via weight savings) range/performance of electric versions of platforms.

The 36 month REALITY project will enable the development and industrial deployment of sensor-based scrap sorting technologies to separate wrought and cast alloys and then to further separate wrought alloys into alloy types for the first time. Full scale recycled scrap based sheet and castings will be produced and evaluated. End-of-life vehicles will be shredded and automatically sorted using state of the art sensing and sorting technologies. The recovered wrought and cast scrap will be alloyed, melt conditioned to remove or tolerate impurities and then supplied for either coil production or for the commercial scale shape casting production by high pressure vacuum diecasting. Materials evaluation and characterisation will be carried out on both the resultant sheet and cast product forms. Cost effective automated separation processes for shredder scrap will enable the closed-loop recycling of end-of-life vehicles back into high performance product forms for new vehicle body manufacture in the UK, providing significant CO2 savings (less or no primary metal) and major cost savings. The UK, the major exporter or the more than 1Mt of aluminium scrap from the EU each year, will be uniquely placed to use rather than export this precious scrap based secondary aluminium alloy resource.

A major current problem for the automobile industry is to reduce the negative environmental impact of its products. One way to do this is to reduce car weight and thus reduce exhaust pollution. Around 40% weight saving is achieved if aluminium alloy is used to replace steel. A barrier to using aluminium more widely, and not only in premium grade cars, is its low room temperature formability in cold pressing operations. A novel patented process, HFQ®, invented in the UK, enables heated aluminium alloy sheet to be formed into complex shapes whilst retaining the full strength of the material. Simple hot pressing does not allow this. The HFQ® process is being increasingly adopted by industry with notable success. However, relatively long cycle times are required to preheat sheet metal blanks using electric ovens. Because of this, costly multiple ovens have to be used, otherwise productivity will be low therefore increasing piece price. RASTec aims to eliminate the bottleneck, at no added cost, by increasing heating rate by up to 10 times that of conventional ovens. RASTec achieves this through induction heating adapted to sheet metal. Small closely spaced heating elements, the number of which can be activated to match with a blank shape for high efficiency, feedback controlled from temperature sensors will enable either uniform temperature or predetermined temperature profiles to be achieved. By reducing production costs, reducing production energy usage, whilst increasing accuracy and increasing productivity, the RASTec technology suite will enable faster take up of high strength Al alloys in mass-produced cars, trains, aeroplanes.

Gordon Murray Design's innovative and ground breaking iStream automotive manufacturing technology allows significant reductions in setup, production costs, vehicle mass, and lifecycle CO2 emissions, whilst offering cost effective design flexibility that exceeds current Euro NCAP occupant and pedestrian impact regulations. The project consortium of Gordon Murray Design, Innoval Technology Limited, Constellium and Brunel University (BCAST) aim to develop an iStream monocoque that is 30 - 40% lighter than the incumbent steel/glass fibre composite structure. Using a novel high strength extrusion alloy combined with advanced composite panels based on recycled carbon fibre, the project aims to further reduce CO2 emissions through significant lightweighting, whilst maintaining the high volume, low cost benefits of the original disruptive iStream technology. The project also aims to take another major step, making full use of the iStream process, towards a new generation of lightweight vehicles for the UK market that can have a major impact on the UK government’s carbon reduction targets for the UK vehicle fleet

Lightweight crash management systems are of increasing importance for most forms of ground transport. Automotive OEMs like JLR have advanced aluminium automotive body designs but still depend on steel for bumper beams. For rail applications steel based crash systems predominate. Constellium has developed considerably stronger extrusion alloys based on the AA6xxx alloy system that are fully recycling compatible with the sheet used for automotive structures and body panels. Brunel University has developed alloys and casting technologies that enable extrusions and castings to be combined in novel ways to produce a new generation of compact lightweight crash management systems. The envisaged work programme will include a high strength alloy being combined with casting alloys using overcasting techniques and the use of bonded and riveted joints to demonstrate the potential for both increased crash resistance and weight saving. The project will demonstrate and evaluate optimised designs for crash management systems for both automotive and rail transport.

The aim of this project is for a consortium of industry leaders, Lotus Cars, Innoval, PAB Coventry, Impression Technology and Imperial College to develop an enabling technology for significant reduction in carbon emissions from automobiles and therefore help preserve a healthy world environment through pollution reduction. There are two major ways this can be achieved; through making engines and power trains more efficient and therefore transforming a greater proportion of fuel into motive power and by reducing the weight of cars and thus reducing the amount of fuel necessary in normal driving situations. This project is focusing on the second option around body structures as these account for about 30% of overall car weight. The aim is to establish a proven manufacturing route for the manufacture of one-piece aluminium alloy sheet metal components that will be a cost-effective substitute for current steel parts. Several manufacturers are already using aluminium alloy parts in their car bodies, but these cannot substitute directly for steel and are usually made of several relatively simple shapes attached to each other, which makes them expensive and does not achieve the weight reduction inherent with aluminium . Two techniques will be cominbed in one process; tailor-welded blanks and HFQ (a newly patened hot forming process for enhancing the formability of aluminium alloy) This combination of two novel forming techniques new to aluminium alloy manufacture will enable sophisticated one-piece parts to be made, which are ecomomically viable,eventually for all classes of car and achieve the ulitmate in weight saving of 50 to 60%, compared with steel designs.

REALCAR 2 enables lightweight automotive body structures to be built using aluminium sheet derived from lower cost, energy efficient, recycled post consumer sources. The project makes innovative use of waste collection techniques and material production to produce a new to market high recycled and high impurity content 5xxx series sheet alloy, supporting a low manufacturing CO2 footprint and providing significant value to the supply chain and end user. The project will exploit growing volumes of post consumer aluminium waste from Mechanical Biological Treatment plants, driving the associated recycling infrastructure. The new 5xxx series aluminium alloy chemistry will be produced as full sized production coils; this requires evaluation of the rolling/production phase to produce sheet for full characterisation. REALCAR 2 is intended to deliver key environmental and commercial benefits for the next generation of Jaguar Land Rover vehicles.

Structural aluminium alloy castings are an essential part of future Low Carbon Vehicle (LCV) body structures. They are presently made from primary aluminium using alloy compositions that are not sufficiently ductile or compatible with the closed loop recycling of end of life vehicles. Research at Brunel University has demonstrated that a novel alloy composition can meet the Jaguar Land Rover requirements for structural castings in terms of mechanical properties, joinability using self-piercing rivets, and a recycled content of 75% including both process and post consumer scrap. The 24 month project will enable high pressure diecastings for structural BIW (Body in White) applications of the new alloy to be developed at Brunel University and demonstrated on an industrial scale as a function of recycled scrap level. The goal is both a fully UK-based supply chain and significant CO2 savings in vehicle production and use.

Al-Si casting alloys have a wide range of applications in the automotive sector. These alloys contain high levels of silicon, which causes large grain sizes. Refining the grain size is crucial to achieve the superior performance castings. Grain refiners used for non-cast aluminium alloys are ineffective in cast aluminium due to the silicon levels. Brunel’s new grain refiner (BGR) provides a much needed solution to this problem. The BGR has the potential to transform practices in the Al-Si casting industry by enabling innovative, cheaper, and simpler casting to produce high performance cast structures. Delivering benefits to a wide range of casting techniques, it should enable castings with superior properties, thereby, allowing aluminium to replace some steel components in the automotive sector. The project aims at applying grain refiner to produce high performance Al-Si alloys cast components for automotive applications.

The aim of the REPLICAL project is to develop a new roll to roll production process route using aluminium rollers for continuously manufacturing polymer film with similar anti-reflective properties to those of a moth-eye. Proof-of-concept for the nanoreplication process has been demonstrated. We intend to scale-up roller manufacture to a commercial scale and to demonstrate the manufacture of a range of moth-eye film products for the display and touch-screen markets. Roller manufacture requires special aluminium sheet as starting material and innovative surface finishing to produce rollers with the surface for direct polymer replication for anti-reflective properties. The innovative roll-to-roll nanoreplication process will lead to a step-change in UK competitiveness through a novel manufacturing route for a wide range of biomimetic functional polymer films.

This project will develop, for snow melting and ice prevention of rail switch points, an electric heating system which will require less energy than conventional switch point heaters. This new heating system will be have 4 elements: a self- regulating semi-conductive polymeric heater, an advanced intelligent control system, a thermal insulation system and a dual power supply (mains or solar). Concept testing and thermal heat transfer calculations indicate energy savings of 75% and a 30 to 50% reduction in product life cycle costs. In addition, the new heating system cannot burnout and hence is safer than current technology. This would give Network Rail potential energy cost savings of £9.9 million per year and a carbon footprint reduction of 52,000 tonnes of CO2e per year. This technology could be utilised in other rail heating applications such as heating of the third rail, overhead cables, bridges, tunnels, platforms and under-floor heating.

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The goal of the PLANET project was to deliver a novel process for manufacture of lightweight hybrid automotive body panels with a significant weight reduction compared to conventional monolithic metal panels. This was achieved by forming metal sheets by the injection of molten plastic in a conventional injection moulding machine in a similar way to hydroforming. This plastic both bonded to the metal bond and formed features on the metal. The hybrid combination of metal and polymer enabled a reduction in metal thickness with additional benefits including a minimisation of springback, reduced tooling costs, increased part complexity, part consolidation and improved impact/safety properties. In addition the polymer backing of the metal provided a corrosion protection of the metal. The technology requires only minor modification to existing injection moulding technology. The project evaluated the design and production of automotive panel systems to establish the most efficient and practical composite. The intention was to establish OEM confidence to apply the new material combination for future low carbon vehicles.

Jaguar Land Rover is now one of the global leaders in the manufacture of complete aluminium automotive body structures. Whilst delivering significant enhancement to final product performance this slrategy does have huge implication in terms of manufacturing investment, with up lo £200M spent wilh every vehicle programme on press lools & BIW (body-in-white) facilities. A proportion of this cost is due simply to the selection of aluminium rather than steel and its reduced formability driving simpler more numerous parts, wilh more sub-assembly lo create the required levels of complexity. This projecl will industrialise the innovative warm forming concept, in essence marrying the commercially existing worlds of super plastic forming for niche production with the conventional cold processing technique used in volume production today. It will provide a manufacturing process specifically optimised for Premium vehicle production, the aim being to achieve steel formability with aluminium and hence steel investmeni levels with savings of up to £20M per vehicle programme. In press tooling terms we envisage a 40% reduction in the capital & revenue costs associated with the consolidation of 30 key structural componenls through the application of this technology. Such a reduction in part count, tooling & facilities, will in addition, contribute towards JLR's improved Carbon Footprint, as they look lo further 'green' their manufacturing processes and in doing so achieve the target of a 25% reduction in Manufacturing Carbon Footprint by 2015.

The 5 partners in this project are Heat Trace Ltd, University of Manchester, Innoval Technology, 3M UK and Watlow Ltd. This project has been very successful and showed that 1) Aluminium can replace copper in existing electrical heating products and significantly reduce costs. These products will be more competitive in existing and new markets 2) The use of aluminium has enabled two novel product designs, which are major innovative steps in electrical heating technology. The first is a flexible laminated heater which can be customised to fit around any shape of object to be heated. The second is an integrated heated pipe which will radically change conventional pipe trace heating, giving major savings in the costs of the product, installation and operational energy. Heat Trace has installed a continuous aluminium extruder line for the development and production of these novel aluminium based products. There is a wide range of markets applications including industrial (oil and chemical industries, power stations, rail, automotive, aerospace); commercial (hospitals, schools, offices) and residential (under-floor heating, frost protection and heated hot water pipes)

To enable companies to successfully compete today and in the future, they need to develop the next generation of light weight environmentally friendly and sustainable transportation systems. As these products are subjected to demanding and repeated loadings, it is necessary to be able to predict the durability performance of the joints in the vehicle. The Bonded Car project has developed commercially available software simulation tools to predict the operating life of five joining technologies: - Structural Adhesive, Self-Pierce Rivets, Aluminium Spot Welds, Weld-Bonded and Riv-Bonded. This will enable the type of joint, location and number of joints required to be determined, to meet the durability operating performance of the structure, while reducing both cost and weight.

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A major UK requirement for novel lightweight materials for applications in extreme and hostile environments has been identified. DCRC provides the process route to high performance aluminium products of compositions that can''t be made by conventional casting technologies. The process is applicable to aluminium slab and billet production and provides increased productivity with reduced downstream processing and lower costs. This proposal is focussed on process development and providing products for specific challenging materials applications requiring combinations of extreme strength and ductility, temperature stability, wear resistance and corrosion performance. This project is critical for process development and industrial adoption of these novel products. The industrially driven consortium has the materials, modelling, and engineering skills and experience for commercialising world-beating DCRC products within a few years.

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