Digital and Cost-efficient Production of Hybrid Polymethacrylimide Foam Cores for Radical Lightweighting of Light-duty Vehicles

Lightweight, cost-efficient structural materials are vital to increasing Electric Vehicles' (E.V.s') efficiency, maximizing the effectiveness of infrastructure bill spending, and thus, building a sustainable all-electric future. The light-duty segment of the automotive industry will increase its share of lightweight materials from 30 to 95% by 2050. Structural sandwich structures, featuring a composite construction of a foam core wrapped in fiber-reinforced skin, offer a very high component weight reduction potential - 40 to 75% - and functionalization potential compared to traditional metal alternatives. This sandwich construction is therefore ideal for Automotive O.E.M.s to increase the range, safety, and adoption of electric cars. However, current foam cores feature low thermo-mechanical properties and are costly to produce in complex shapes. This production bottleneck prevents the incorporation of structural composites in mass-manufactured automobiles. In a partnership for climate Impact, Gencores Inc. and T.P.I Composites Inc. demonstrate scalable digital production of low-cost and high-performance hybrid Polymethacrylimide (PMI) foam core designs. In particular, our unique cores withstand the pressures and temperatures of high-volume carbon fiber molding machines (HP-RTM), unlocking the production of structural composites in minutes for cost-driven marketplaces. This material and material processing breakthrough will allow for increasing E.Vs’ range up to 60%, accelerating the development and deployment of urban air mobility, electric aviation, ultra-light wind turbine blades, and the development of integrated structural energy storage solutions. At scale, this technology cuts over 750MMT of CO2 emission per year.