HyFiVe - "High volume variant production of plastic-metal hybrid components".

The overall objective of the project is a joint component and process development as well as the provision of suitable manufacturing and tooling technologies for a variant production of plastic-metal hybrid components in accordance with specific requirements. At IFUM, the characterisation of the semi-finished materials, the tool and the process development for the production of a battery tray made of fibre-reinforced plastic (FRP) and a metallic reinforcement frame are carried out. The battery tray is manufactured from glass mat reinforced thermoplastics (GMT) using the compression moulding process. In the first step, suitable functionally integrated semi-finished products are identified and characterised. This includes the process-specific characterisation of a fibre-reinforced, thermoplastic compression moulding compound for a numerical process simulation. A suitable process window and the optimum temperature and positioning of the semi-finished products in the mould must be determined for compression moulding. For this purpose, demonstrator components with different geometries are manufactured by varying process parameters. For a load-adapted reinforcement, UD tapes are integrated into the components, which additionally fulfil an EMC protection function. To select the optimum semi-finished products, various tape arrangements are tested and evaluated. For this purpose, tensile tests at elevated temperatures are carried out. In addition, the battery tray will be extended by a metallic reinforcement frame. This provides the necessary stability for the assembly and is intended to absorb the forces that occur in the event of a crash. Suitable materials with high specific strength are identified for the design of the reinforcement frame in order to make optimum use of the lightweight potential. Afterwards, a suitable manufacturing process is determined for the production of the frame structure. To achieve the highest possible strength, specific heat treatment strategies are investigated and integrated into the process route.

In the further course of the project, the knowledge gained on the production of the battery housing structure from fibre-reinforced thermoplastics and the metallic reinforcement frame will be transferred to a large-scale component and process development. The aim at IFUM is to provide a suitable process chain for the variant-flexible production of a hybrid component consisting of an FRP battery tray and a metallic reinforcement frame.

This research and development project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the funding initiative “Research Campus - Public-Private Partnership for innovation” (funding code: 02P18Q745) and implemented by the Project Management Agency Karlsruhe (PTKA). The author is responsible for the content of this publication. For more information, please visit www.bmbf.de.