Natural fibers reinforced composite: an affordable and sustainable new material/ design/ manufacturing approach - NATALINA

Project summary

The use of natural fibre reinforced composites is in a constant expansion particularly in automotive industries due to their low cost, low density and good mechanical, and thus low environmental impact and recyclability. One of the barriers to the uptake of this class of composites is the perceived uncontrolled variability in properties, low productivity and cost associated with the manufacturing of finished parts. NATALINA aims to answer these major drawbacks through the development of an innovative processing technology and by reuse of prepreg off-cut waste as discontinuous flakes and suppress organosheet & stamping wastes. At the end of the project, this concept will be validated on a semi-pilot line scale and a representative demonstrator at TRL5. An industrial board will be associated to the project, from the product specificity until the demonstration in order to reduce time-to-market of project’s result.