EconCore’s honeycomb cores have long enabled the development of highly cost-efficient, resource-friendly, lightweight sandwich structures. The proprietary technology of the Belgium-based company, which has made the cost-efficient continuous production of honeycomb cores possible, was successfully extended in 2020 to include the use of recycled PET.
The cores are composed of 100% recycled PET that is predominantly sourced from non-food post-consumer and industrial PET waste streams.
Given its mechanical performance, low weight and high-temperature stability, rPET is the material of choice for applications ranging from building and construction to the packaging and automotive industry.
These rPET honeycomb cores have now been selected and applied by the Formula Electric Belgium team in their Titan race car. The team has applied the cores in the front wings of the race car, which was publicly unveiled on 24 May.
Formula Electric Belgium is a team of engineering students that design and build electric vehicles to compete in the Formula Student competition. Now in its twelfth year, the initiative includes students from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, UGent, UHasselt, UCLouvain and Thomas More University in Belgium.
A thermoplastic material was required to be used for the front wing design of the Titan, as this would be thermoformed, said the team of engineering students working on the project. They chose to produce the front wing skin from natural flax fibre. Last year’s team used carbon fibre reinforced composites for the skins of the wing profile, reinforced with aluminium stiffeners similar to those found in airplane wings. This year, a different solution was devised in which rPET honeycomb material replaced the aluminium stiffeners, creating a sandwich panel which was both lighter and more rigid.
Compared to the previous wing design, the new structure yielded a 26% reduction in wing weight, while providing high rigidity and able to withstand forces equivalent to almost 1000 times its own weight.
The cores were used both in the aerodynamics package, as well as for the entire undertray of the 220kg race car.
The Titan race car underwent multiple tests throughout the various stages of development, including a three-point bending test, which showed the wing was capable of withstanding 46kg of force.
“With the rPET honeycomb core, Formula Electric Belgium were able to produce a highly rigid, lightweight front wing component which weighed in at only 50 grams,” said Wouter Winant, technical manager at EconCore. “And at the same time this shows that achieving optimal performance is possible with sustainable materials.”
The Titan race car was showcased at the launch event on the 24th of May 2022 to over 300 attendees, including Formula Electric Belgium partners and other Belgium University teams taking part in the Formula Student competitions. The next steps for the race car are to undergo testing and set-up sessions prior to the first competitive race in the Netherlands in July, followed by further races in Hungary and Croatia in August.
EconCore’s rPET honeycomb cores have been well received in the market as a tangible demonstration of how mechanical properties and performance can be achieved sustainably. The company was named the winner of a European Green Award in the Green Innovation Award category 31 May, and its RPET honeycomb core technology was also recently accredited with the highly prestigious Solar Impulse Label, a trustworthy and reliable certification of quality which highlights the importance of investing in clean technologies as an economic and industrial opportunity.