EU Project ALMA (Advanced Light Materials and Processes for the Eco-Design of Electric Vehicles)
E-mobility and lightweight construction are drivers of the energy transition in modern vehicle development. Therefore, they stand in the focus of the ALMA project. Nine European organizations worked on the EU project to develop more energy-efficient and sustainable vehicles. Companies from research and industry optimized the efficiency and range of electric vehicles, for example by reducing the weight of the overall vehicle. Our team of the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM provided support with mathematical simulation expertise.
According to its strategy for low-emission mobility, the European Union aims to put at least 30 million zero-emission vehicles on the roads by 2030. More climate protection, new markets, less dependence on fossil fuels – mobility is to be rethought. To make transport more climate-friendly, EU measures are being taken to promote jobs, investment and innovation. The Horizon 2020 project of the European Commission ALMA represents one of these measures.
Project Concludes Three-Year Journey: Pioneering Future of Circular Electric Mobility
The project brings together nine partners from four countries of the European Union. We contribute our long-standing expertise in the field of efficient multiscale and process simulation of fiber-reinforced composite components. Our customized simulation tools create a digital twin and support the optimization of lightweight structures during vehicle development. This includes the simulation of the forming process of SMC components to calculate the local fiber concentration and fiber orientation with our software FLUID and the subsequent multiscale simulation of the thermomechanical behavior with our tool FeelMath to predict the strength and damage behavior.
Project Goal: Greater Range and Lower Weight Thanks to Multi-Material Platform
In order to improve the efficiency and range of electric vehicles, the weight of the overall vehicle has been reduced. In addition, the upcoming stricter EU regulations require the optimization of the production process towards a more sustainable circular economy – here the entire life cycle of the vehicles and the supply chains were taken into account. The companies and research institutes also worked together on the sustainable life cycle of an e-vehicle platform. This includes intelligent recycling and possible options for material recovery.
The project has defined very specific goals: To meet the challenges, ALMA has developed a new type of battery-electric vehicle structure for a passenger car, achieving a weight reduction in the vehicle structure of over 20 percent compared to the current baseline – at comparable costs. To this end, the researchers jointly developed a modular multi-material platform based on a combination of Advanced High Strength Steels (AHHS), Advanced SMC and steel hybrid materials and relying on multi-scale modeling tools.
Final Project Video
ALMA Project’s novel lightweight, efficient and sustainable Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) structure for passenger cars promises major strides in the EU’s green road transport transition away from fossil fuels. The ALMA BEV body-in-white (BiW) is 22 percent lighter than the baseline design, resulting in a 24 percent reduction in carbon emissions for the BiW and a corresponding 9 percent reduction for the entire car over the vehicle’s entire service life.
Detailed information about the project: www.itwm.fraunhofer.de/alma-en