Ariel Hipercar with mixed material monocoque chassis
Background
The Ariel Hipercar (SOLMAC) project was funded by the Niche Vehicle Network as one its Production Readiness projects and supported by Innovate UK, OLEV and the APC. Project participants were Ariel Motors, Macneillie (Babcock), Stalcom Automotive Technologies and Powdertech Surface Science.
The aim of the project was to build a lightweight ‘mixed material’ monocoque chassis using aluminium and affordable polypropylene composite. A serious stumbling block for the mixed material design arose with the low bond strengths achieved for the metal-composite joints when using industrial adhesive.
The Powderbond Solution
“We already had PowderBond as a prototype system and felt that it could well provide the solution’’ says Dr Nick Welton, PowderBond Technical Consultant.
Aluminium treated with PowderBond was placed in a vac-bag moulding system with GFPP and then cured at the correct time and temperature required for the composite. Heat and pressure activated the PowderBond and fusion bonding took place.
Benefits
Bond strengths were thoroughly assessed throughout the build and found to exceed expectations.
The new design, underpinned by Powderbond, helped to cut overall part count by around 75%, this being one of the project aims. Rather than using 142 components and 580 fastenings for the all-aluminium version,the PowderBonded version reduced this to 37 and 150 respectively.
Find out more
If you would like further information on the benefits that PowderBond could bring to your design please call us for a chat. We will work closely with you through evaluation for your own particular application.
