DIGITAL MANUFACTURING | TECHNOLOGY
tion before the end of their lifespan, are scrapped or at best sold as spare parts. This is both uneco- nomical and unsustainable. A so-called circular manufacturing ecosystem (CME) could save both money and resources. However, there is currently no efficient connection between industrial companies and the used machinery market – allowing sellers and buyers to trade these machines and machine parts. Now, Alicia – which stands for ‘assembly lines in
circulation’ – is hoping to change that. Over three years, 12 partners will develop different smart, digital tools for sustainable use of production resources. The project is coordinated by the Technical University of Munich (TUM). By developing new digital tools, the project aims to establish efficient economic connections between industrial players and the used machinery market. This would enable assets to be fully reused and create a new type of circular economy – the CME. If Alicia is successful, resources – such as entire
production lines, individual machines and spare parts – could be be traded and reused among individual factories until their life cycle is exhaust- ed. This might take up to 10 years to establish.
In the cloud Asahi Kasei Engineering has launched a cloud- based CAE solution platform, offering precise ways to predict crash and impact behaviour of polymers. As adoption of polymers in cars and other
products increases, precise simulation of material behaviour will enhance product design and reduce the cost and time for material and application development. Cloud-based high-performance com- puting (HPC) is being increasingly used. As a result,
on-demand use of computer aided engineering (CAE) software installed in cloud HPC as software as a service is also becoming more common. AEC has now extended its CAE-related service by launching its cloud-based ‘CAE Solution Platform’ offering various apps that can be easily downloaded and used by customers. Apps offered on the platform include the
accurate polymer material fracture prediction model i-Lupe. Amorphous polymer materials have a microscopic structure in which molecular chains are entangled. When a force is applied to this material, causing significant deformation, the molecular chains are stretched – which results in the formation of voids and fibrils (bundles of molecular chains). When these ‘crazes’ grow, the polymer fractures. By focusing on these crazes, i-Lupe accurately predicts and reproduces possible polymer fractures. As a supporting app to i-Lupe, the CAE solution
platform offers an on-demand mapping tool focused on anisotropic materials such as fibre-rein- forced resins. This tool converts fibre orientation data into i-Lupe material property lists, which are used as reference for selecting the optimal material for specific applications. This enables an accurate visual representation of deformation behaviour of fibre-reinforced resins, says the company.
CLICK ON THE LINKS FOR MORE INFORMATION: �
www.engelglobal.com �
www.arburg.com �
www.sumitomo-shi-demag.eu �
www.toyo-mm.co.jp �
www.netstal.com �
www.kraussmaffei.com �
www.wittmann-group.com �
https://alicia-cme.eu �
www.asahi-kasei.co.jp
www.injectionworld.com
Above: Apps such as Asahi Kasei’s iLupe help to find crazes – such as voids and fibrils – in polymer structures
Left: Alicia, a project that aims to minimise premature scrapping of production machinery, has 12 partners
November/December 2024 | INJECTION WORLD 17
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