Public Funding for Polestar Automotive UK Limited

There is a drive for the application of more sustainable, resource efficient, productivemanufacturing technologies to enable the manufacture of higher-performing, moreefficient products. Additive Manufacturing (AM) offers the ability to realise newgeometries, impossible to create using traditional manufacturing techniques, enabling radical new product designs through part consolidation and optimisation, allowing improved efficiencies and light-weighting. The aim of this project is to bring a new Additive Manufactured high performance,lightweight state-of-the-art actuator (Shock Absorber) to the motorsport and high performance vehicle (HPV) market, especially the Electric Vehicle (EV) market. The project is lead by R53 Engineering Ltd (designer and manufacturer of high-performance hydraulic actuators) who will develop novel lightweight and efficient actuator designs, supported by Matsuura Machinery Ltd and the University of Warwick, who will provide Design for Additive Manufacturing rules and material property information to R53 to ensure that the designs are capable of being manufactured using the state-of-the-art production rate Binder Jetting metal AM technologies. The benefits to the driving experience and vehicle dynamics of the actuators will be validated using the vehicle test facilities within Polestar, who will be an early adopter of this technology in their EVs

There is increasing industrial, regulatory and consumer demand for the use of greener alternatives across a range of everyday products, with a particular focus on formulated non-food items. It is also a key strategy for the UK government and manufacturers to use biobased alternatives to petrochemical-derived ingredients across the chemical industry. Bio-refining of a range of low-value biomass residues offers a way to produce intermediate chemicals to replace fossil-based materials, whilst simultaneously increasing their value and reducing their impact on the environment. However, current biorefining technologies are wasteful, inefficient and often unprofitable. Bio-Sep, using its novel, patented ultrasonic processing technology, aims to make a step-change in biorefining while stimulating investments in the UK bioeconomy. In collaboration with a strong consortium of global leaders in process innovation, chemicals, composites and automotives, Bio-Sep aims to optimise the Sonichem technology for specific, renewable, consistent, and widely-available UK biomass and generate platform chemicals directly relevant to the paints, coatings, cosmetics, construction, resins, pharmaceuticals, and additives markets. The consortium will explore the use of lignin to pioneer composite resin formulations that contain high-levels of renewable, non-petrochemical content, and utilise low-carbon feedstocks. As part of the project, applications of this material to composites for automotive applications will be investigated. The main outcome of the project will be optimised and validated ultrasonic fractionation of UK biomass residues, achieved in a commercially-viable and environmentally-sustainable manner under mild operating conditions, to produce high-quality lignin. The lignin will be demonstrated as suitable for the production of renewable, low carbon and bio-based feedstocks for composite materials relevant to the automotive sector. These outcomes allow Bio-Sep to provide a basis for the scaling of the innovation, promote the Sonichem biorefinery concept more widely, and advance subsequent commercialisation with exploitation partners across the chemicals industry.

Increasing levels of vehicle automation, driven by market demand and technology evolution, have led to a dramatic increase in functional software content and vehicle complexity. The testing of such systems presents a significant challenge for developers, deployers, regulators and insurers, who need to gain confidence in the safety, robustness and performance of these systems in the real world. Traditional automotive approaches to validation and verification would require an extremely protracted and ultimately impracticable test programme to achieve an appropriate level of test coverage. This is due to the complexity of the systems and their interactions with the surrounding environment, meaning that vast numbers of scenarios would need to be tested. CERTUS will address this challenge through the development of standardised processes where simulation techniques will be integrated to form a Digital Twin of the vehicle and its operational design domain. Delivering the capability to assure products virtually in a repeatable manner and with a high degree of confidence, which is critical to realising the ultimate goal of using virtual test for vehicle certification. Backed by a structured methodology which provides the level of rigour required to satisfy stakeholders, CERTUS will deliver robust simulation which optimises the quantity of physical testing whilst demonstrating the correlation of simulated performance to real world scenarios and ultimately reducing the time to market.