Autonomous vehicles, car sharing open opportunities for materials

NOVI, Mich.—Self-driving vehicles will bring new performance and design requirements to the automotive sector, and that means more opportunities for advanced materials and manufacturing technologies.

Speakers at the 2019 WardsAuto Interiors Conference, held May 9, discussed these opportunities during a morning breakout session on how autonomous vehicles will drive the need for new materials.

Surfaces, especially in shared vehicles, will need to be durable, cleanable, antimicrobial and scratch-resistant, said Rose Ryntz, president of Ryntz & Associates L.L.C.

"Certainly, all of the things we have been working on over the past decade—from mass reduction to odor and (volatile organic compounds)—have not gone away and, in fact, because of the global nature will be even more important," said Ryntz, who moderated the discussion.

New materials, smart functions

AVs, in some combination with electric vehicles and car sharing, will require interior components and materials to meet new functional values, said Robert Eller, president of Robert Eller Associates L.L.C.

"The supply chain is going to evolve to meet the requirements, and many of the materials capabilities already exist," Eller said.

Smart materials, especially, will help to enable some of the future functions auto makers and suppliers are pursuing. This means materials that have one or more properties that respond to various types of external stimuli, such as stress or pressure, and react to it by self-healing or being electroactive, photosensitive or photochromic, Eller explained.

"'Smart' is a combination of sensing and sending, so sensing pressure, electricity, heat, etc., and sending that signal somewhere to react to what's being picked up," he said. "So, if you look at where you need sensing, that's where 'smart' will be applied."

In car sharing, Eller said, aspects such as wear resistance, privacy and more versatile connectivity are important topics going forward.

There are also opportunities for coatings to serve multiple functions such as keeping surfaces and lidar detectors clean, grease resistance to minimize fingerprint marks and antiglare for touchscreens, among other options.

"Another concept is that sensors are going to drive design and what I mean by that is plastics will have a relationship to sensors," Eller said. "They've got to be protected. They've got to be mounted. They've got to be shown where they can perform their function, and plastics will have to be designed around them."

Projection screens—whether on a headliner or rear seatback—could also become more dominant in an autonomous vehicle, where the seating arrangement can be altered, and occupants can take their eyes off the road to do other things.

Eller said instrument panel skins are also being developed as image projection surfaces, which in the future could be places for data collection, health monitoring, entertainment or advertising.

He showed an introductory concept of a display skin made of thermoplastic polyolefin, with or without foam, from South Korea's LG Hausys Ltd. The display skin is translucent and can display intuitive information, such as weather conditions and vehicle data, via touch sensors. Though the product is still under development, LG Hausys claims it can pass OEM specifications.

"Smart applications are going to open new opportunities for sending and receiving signals, displays, acoustics and entertainment, interior lighting and signaling, and projecting images," Eller said. "Cleanability will become an important functional value. … And there are lots and lots of short-term opportunities on the way to AVs."

Making room for the new
One of those opportunities is looking beyond traditional manufacturing processes—or "old tech," as Eller referred to it—for making these automotive interior components.

That's where Carbon comes in.

The additive manufacturing company, which produces parts that are layerless and isotropic, is finding new opportunities for certain designs and geometries that can't be done via traditional manufacturing processes like injection molding.

The company has formed notable partnerships across industries, one of which is equipment maker Riddell for a 3D printed football helmet lattice liner.

Carbon's highest volume production application, thus far, has been the 3D printed soles on an Adidas sneaker. Last year, more than 160,000 pairs were made. This year, it'll be around 1 million pairs, with Carbon scaling up to produce tens of millions of pairs.

But the automotive industry, specifically, is "a very important market" for the company, said Paul DiLaura, Carbon's vice president of enterprise partnerships.

The company is producing end-use parts for certain models of the Ford Focus, F-150 Raptor and Mustang Shelby GT500. Carbon is also producing a 3D printed fuel cap and air duct component for Lamborghini's Urus super sport utility vehicle.

"All sorts of new possibilities, we think, emerge when some of the constraints of traditional manufacturing are removed," DiLaura said. "The shift to autonomous, the shift to electric vehicles, requires an entirely new concept around the architecture of the electrical system."

Many of these vehicles are going to be low volume at first, so traditional economics associated with tooling costs and long lead times for tooling can be restrictive and prevent adoption of these new technologies, he said. But additive manufacturing gives auto makers and suppliers the ability to flexibly and quickly add components.

"Speed remains important," he said. "The ability to develop these new technologies quickly, the ability to get them out to market quickly, and additive manufacturing technologies can help enable that by shortening cycles associated with development and eliminating some of those tooling steps."

DiLaura said his company is seeing a "real thirst and interest" from the automotive sector in understanding and implementing technologies such as 3D printing. A challenge, however, is finding the right application for production that brings the most value.

"That takes a real commitment from an organization's leadership to make it a priority and, ultimately, a vision of what it can be in the future."