LEVIS, short for Advanced Light materials for sustainable Electrical Vehicles by Integration of eco-design and circular economy Strategies, is a HORIZON 2020 project funded by the European Union under the "Building a low-carbon, climate resilient future: Green Vehicles" call.
LEVIS’ aim is to develop lightweight components for electric vehicles using eco-design and circular approaches. LEVIS makes use of multi-material solutions based on fibre reinforced thermoplastic composites integrated with metal, which will be produced using cost-effective and scalable manufacturing technologies. The consortium – built by industrial and research partners from seven countries – envisages to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of producing these components in three real-case demonstrators at a large scale: a suspension arm, a battery box set and a cross car beam.
All consortium partners participated in the 1-year meeting to present the work carried out over the first 12 project months. Updates of each project Work Package in the morning were followed by a status review session of each of the LEVIS demonstrators in the afternoon.
Results achieved after one year of LEVIS
After one year of the LEVIS project, the formulation of thermoplastic composite resin with good adhesion to metals for optimized one-shot manufacturing is well in progress. Both biobased carbon fibres from cellulose and innovative thermoplastic acrylic tapes have been manufactured at pilot scale. The sensors manufacturing for components with sensing and health-monitoring capabilities to keep track of the mechanical in-service performance of the targeted parts has successfully been completed. Furthermore, materials and processes combinations have been defined for each of the LEVIS demonstrators and the methodology for the optimisation of dissimilar joins has been defined.
José Ramón Valdés, LEVIS project coordinator from ITAINNOVA (Instituto Tecnológico de Aragón) says:
“After twelve months of LEVIS, we are on the right track of the development of the technology pillars – novel materials, cost-effective processes, structural health monitoring (SHM) and end-of-life solutions – that will allow industries to design and produce the lightweight, cost-effective and sustainable components of the EVs of the future."
Sustainability at the very core of LEVIS
Within LEVIS, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology is being developed to ensure that lightweight materials, manufacturing technologies, and recycling processes result in an improved environmental performance. After assessing the benchmark settings, a second LCA will be performed for the LEVIS demonstrators once the detailed designs and processes are fully defined. Esther van Bergen, General Manager at Cenex Nederland and leader of the development of the iEDGE (eco-design) toolkit explains:
“The aim of LEVIS is to achieve a reduced global warming potential by 7% at vehicle level and 25% at component level compared to the benchmark scenario.”
The way forward for the second project year
The LEVIS consortium is looking ahead at an eventful and challenging next 12 months. The process window development for each study case and the manufacturing route of the LEVIS demonstrators will be completed, piezoelectric transducers will be integrated into the composite housing, preliminary LCA results will be presented and surface mount device (SMD) temperature sensors will be integrated in the module housing. As all previous meetings were held remotely due to the pandemic, partners are hopeful to have an on-site meeting in June 2022 to have the chance to meet and review the project progress face to face for the first time.
Project Partners
- Instituto Tecnológico de Aragón (ITA), Spain
- Marelli Suspension Systems Italy S.p.A (MSS), Italy
- Mersen France Angers SAS (MERSEN), France
- Privé Srl (PRI), Italy
- Yeşilova Holding A.Ş. (YOVA), Turkey
- Tofaş Türk Otomobil Fabrikasi A.Ş. (TOFAS), Turkey
- Asociación de Investigación Metalúrgica del Noroeste (AIMEN), Spain
- Centre Technologique Nouvelle-Aquitaine Composites & Matériaux Avancés (CANOE), France
- Leartiker S. Coop (LEAR), Spain
- RISE Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE), Sweden
- Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives (CEA), France
- Stichting Cenex Nederland (CENEX NL), Netherlands
- Steinbeis Europa Zentrum der Steinbeis Innovation gGmbH (SEZ), Germany
This document reflects only the author’s view and the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) and the European Commission are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.
