Latest news with #Donkervoort
Auto Car
2 days ago
- Automotive
- Auto Car
How 3D-printing made this intercooler 10 times lighter
3D-printing technology – or, to use its proper name, additive manufacturing (AM) – has progressed fast over the past five years. Dutch car company Donkervoort is one of the latest to take advantage of its unique benefits, by 3D-printing intercoolers for its forthcoming P24 RS supercar. These were developed by Australia's Conflux, and the technique goes one step further than merely being a convenient way to manufacture things. By using AM, the weight of the aluminium-alloy liquid-to-air intercoolers has been slashed from 16kg to 1.4kg. Conflux describes the technique as Formula 1 technology (its founder has a background in the sport), and it has other benefits too: this intercooler has superior thermal performance and packaging benefits to conventional equivalents. It should be tougher too, because it's a single, one-piece structure with no joints or welds. Donkervoort issued a specification for the intercooler and Conflux actually improved on it, returning a design that was so effective that it could be downsized still further from the original prototype. Rather than mounted at the front of the car, the compact intercoolers can be sited within the engine bay, reducing the length of the inlet tract by two-thirds. The result is quicker throttle response, better efficiency and optimised weight distribution, all of which directly benefit the driver. Coolant flowing through the intercooler is dedicated to the job and cooled by an external radiator not shared with any other drivetrain cooling system. AM is a process whereby, controlled by a 3D computer model, objects are formed by firing lasers into a bed of powdered material, fusing it together. Conflux makes the new intercoolers from AlSi10Mg, a high-grade aluminium alloy that it claims is one of the most common and well accepted aluminium alloys in the industry. Conflux also uses it for components in aviation, motorsport and industrial applications. Intercoolers are needed because when air is compressed (by a turbocharger in this case), it heats up and becomes less dense. For maximum performance and trouble-free combustion, an engine needs cool induction air. An intercooler cools down the compressed and heated air before it enters the engine by conducting heat through finned walls into a coolant. Thanks to the AM process, these fins in the new Conflux intercooler are extremely thin: at 160 microns, just two or three times thicker than a human hair. And the thinner the fins can be, the more effective they will be at conducting away the unwanted heat.
Forbes
22-04-2025
- Automotive
- Forbes
No, Europe Is Not Banning Carbon Fiber. Here Is Why Many Got It Wrong.
Carbon fiber, the fiber-and-resin material known for its strength and light weight, is not being banned in Europe after all. Contrary to what might have been written elsewhere, motorsport's favorite material has not been joined mercury and lead on the European Union's 'Hazardous Material' list, nor is it about to. By the time outlets like Car and Driver and Motor Trend were last week jumping on a draft European Commission proposal to ban carbon fiber by 2029, the EC had already updated the draft to remove it, according to its own website. The original draft proposal, part of the EU's End-Of-Life Vehicles Directive (ELVD) posited that carbon fibre presented both inhalation and skin contact risks during a car's end-of-life recycling process. Pointing out that draft legislation was not official legislation, the EU shied away from banning carbon fiber because of a lack of evidence, with counter documentation coming from the likes of BMW, Mercedes-AMG, Boeing, Airbus and Audi. The auto industry, which uses about 20% of the world's carbon fiber, went into a panic at the proposal (and the short lead times the 2029 ban gave them). Share prices for the three Japanese companies (Toray Industries, Teijin and Mitsubishi Chemical) that supply more than half raw material for the global carbon-fiber market, plummeted on the news. BMW is the most enthusiastic carbon-fiber proponent of the mainstream automakers, with carbon fiber making up enormous chunks of the iX and XM bodies, after heavily investing in the material for the i8 and i3 experimental series production cars. But carbon fiber is also used as the main chassis component of supercars and hypercars, from Koeniggseg to Pagani, and from Bugatti to Lamborghini. In motorsport, it's the main chassis material in categories from Formula 1, Formula 2, Formula 3, IndyCars and the top flight of the World Endurance Championship and the IMSA championship in the United States. It's also used for wings, suspension pieces, brake discs and bodywork. It is used by companies like Porsche and Donkervoort and Ferrari to save weight and add strength on bodywork and interiors. In short, it's heavily used by companies who make cars that are never end-of-life scrapped, but tend to be refreshed or refurbished and sent back into collections, according to Donkervoort Managing Director, Denis Donkervoort. 'Our records show that more than 99% of the cars we've ever made are still in driving condition,' Donkervoort said. BMW insists that carbon fiber is one of the reasons the whole-of-life emissions of its modern iX is so much lower than the equivalent X5 combustion-powered SUV. Even the EU's investigators have no issue with carbon fiber in the manufacturing process, as sheets of it are laid down in moulds with resin poured in, then processed under pressure and temperature until they emerge as a solid item. Ex-Core, a spin off of Donkervoort, does it differently, with sheets laid down in a smaller mold, a powder filling in the empty parts and then cured with a self-heating tool until the powder turns to syntactic foam to push the carbon-fiber sheets into every angle of the mold. The EU draft proposal hinged around a 2019 Japanese study that declared that 'generation of carbon fiber dust during the recycling process is a serious issue'. The 2019 German study from Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health concluded that: 'Until the questions and concerns raised in this study, which are also arising within the carbon fiber community, are conclusively answered, we strongly advise to accompany any handling of pitch-based carbon fiber and pitch-CF containing products to take appropriate precautionary measures to ensure occupational safety.' Recycling carbon fiber typically involved heating it to beyond 1000 degrees (F), then heating it again beyond 830 degrees to burn off the resin and expose the raw fibers.
