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Consulting, design, service and engineering
Design, development and simulation (design optimization, virtual trials)
Product category: Consulting, design, service and engineering
In electric vehicles, the conventional internal-combustion engine is replaced with one or several electric motors. To highlight the opportunities this alternative drive system offers, a fiber composite lightweight wheel was developed at Fraunhofer LBF within the framework of a collaborative research project in the field of electromobility.
The CFRP wheel with a wheel size of 6.5 x 15“ has a weight of about 3.5 kg. In comparison to a steel wheel of the same size, this means a reduction of up to 60% in weight, depending on the wheel design. Compared to an aluminium-cast wheel, the weight reduction amounts to up to 56% depending on the design.
The motor adapter flange is not directly connected with the rim base. This prevents radial or lateral loads from being transferred directly onto the electric motor. To align the fibers continuously and with the flow of the forces and to avoid stress peaks caused by sharp edges or sudden variations in rigidity, radii that are in line with the material and smooth transitions have been created in the component. The motor adapter flange is connected with the interior area of the wheel axle. To reduce the mass and increase flexural strength, foam cores have been integrated into the spokes. The electric motor is a small, commercially available wheel hub motor. The motor, consisting of a permanent magnet (outer rotor) and a yoke ring with solenoids (stator) has a power of 4kW and a control voltage of 2 x 24.5 V.Product category: Consulting, design, service and engineering
Product category: Consulting, design, service and engineering
Fraunhofer LBF in Darmstadt is one of the most traditional institutes of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. Over 75 years ago, the former “Laboratory for Structural Durability LBF” shaped a completely new area of research that even back then was already economically significant and, up to today, has lost none of its topicality and pertinence. Particularly in the last decade, the institute developed its competence center both in breadth and depth on the basis of experimental structural durability with a great deal of innovation force and high degree of dynamics. Additional market segments beyond the traditional vehicle and mechanical engineering branches of
industry were opened up.
The latest milestone in the development of the „Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability LBF“ was the integration of the renowned German Plastics Institute DKI in 2012. The tried and tested competencies are found today in numerical and experimental structural durability, in smart structures and system reliability and in the area of plastics. Fraunhofer LBF continues to develop these four core competencies
on a technical and organizational level in research divisions of the same name and in a total of 10 departments.
The institute has documented its future plans in a dynamic strategy plan that is checked and assessed by external evaluators on a regular basis. The operative work is critically examined in continuous analyses on customer satisfaction. The management system of Fraunhofer LBF is certified according to DIN ISO EN
9001:2000 and the testing laboratory is accredited according to the requirements of DIN ISO-IEC 17025. This has also led to an extraordinarily high number of customers that has been loyal to the institute for decades.