Worldwide, over 1 million people die each year in road accidents and millions more suffer from injuries. Mandatory Passive Safety Systems (PSS) e.g. in case of a crash, trigger passive safety functions such as airbags and seat belts to reduce the number of fatalities and heavy injuries. However, these PSS follow a ”few-sizes-fit-all” approach (optimized to an “average person” – 175cm, 78kg and male) and thus today, especially for women, children, elderly and people deviating from the average, this leads to significantly higher risks, e.g. any seatbelt-wearing female occupant is 73% more likely to suffer from serious injuries than seatbelt-wearing male occupants (Univ. Virginia). Our project combining R&D and market expertise of 2 industries (airbag and testing systems) and 1 SME partner (computer vision-based software) will disrupt the existing PSS market by introducing a novel highly PERSONALIZED PROTECTION. For the first time, touchless 3D imaging sensors are used to derive precise and real-time information about each occupant - body physique, position and pose, weight and sex - in order to control the PSS mechanisms tailored to each individual occupant. This optimizes the protective function while simultaneously also mitigating the risks of doing unnecessary harm which today also can occur. During this project we will develop our system up to TRL8, standardize & prepare its components for the market needs and implement quality assurance processes required by the automotive industry. Also, a first pilot project with a car manufacturer shall be conducted to allow a short time-to-market across the EU and worldwide on the long run. Our impact targets: saving more than 11.000 lives and preventing over 600.000 injuries between 2025 and 2035. Our innovation strategy: What the system will provide in nowadays cars will also be highly relevant when passengers will be able to move much more freely throughout the interior of a car – in the era of autonomous vehicles.

The COMPASS project is a collaborative effort of AVL, Plansee, Nissan and Research Center Jülich to develop advanced SOFC APU systems for range extender applications in passenger cars. The consortium is perfectly integrated from powder-, cell-, stack-, APU system technology providers to vehicle manufacturer and an academic partner. The project will use innovative metal supports SOFC stack technology, which enables key features like rapid start up and mechanic robustness for this application. Within the project advanced APU systems will be developed with electrical efficiency above 50%, a start up time below 15min and a small packaging size suitable for integration into battery electrical vehicles. Under the lead of NISSAN also a prototype vehicle will be build up, where an APU system will be completely integrated into the electrical powertrain. A major focus of the project is technology validation and systematic durability/reliability development. Therefore in a specific workpackage all validation activities are concentrated. The validation testing includes tests on stack, APU system and vehicle level. The APU system will furthermore undergo automotive testing like vibration, altitude, climate chamber and salt spray. In an additional dedicated workpackage manufacturing cost and business case analyses will be performed. These analyses will help to reduce the technology cost by design-to-cost and design-to-manufacture measures and show the business case of this new powertrain concept compared to other alternative and conventional propulsion concepts. This project is worldwide the first approach to integrate SOFC APU systems into electrical powertrains and will help to significantly improve APU systems also for other applications like heavy duty trucks, marine and leisure/camping.

Electric motors (e-motors) consume more than 40% of electricity produced globally. The EU aims to save ~40Mt of CO2 emissions per year until 2030 by deploying more efficiency e-motors. E-motors are also the driving force behind EVs, currently leading the global efforts for decarbonisation of the transportation sector; their efficiency is crucial in extending EV mileage. Unfortunately, electrification plans for heavy-duty, earth-moving machines and aircrafts (accounting currently ~60% of fossil fuel consumption in transportation) have to overcome, among other limitations, the technological barrier of excess heat generated in the e-motor copper windings during power-demanding operations associated with these sectors. E-COOL promises to address this challenge via the development of a holistic e-motor cooling technology, maximising heat transfer through direct-contact, spray cooling. E-COOL aims to achieve this technological breakthrough at time-scales compatible to those required for industrial innovation to reach the market, by integrating two interdisciplinary activities: (a) development and manufacturing of novel oil-based, dilute polymer mixtures of non-Newtonian nature, which, when employed in spray-cooling thermal management systems, will be a game-changer; (b) implementation of a universal design methodology for spray cooling, optimised with the aid of new Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. Training datasets for the ML tool will be obtained by ‘ground-truth’ experimental and numerical investigations also to be conducted for the first time in E-COOL. The envisioned cooling system aims to provide unprecedented cooling rates at local temperature hot spots, which can contribute to an average 20% increase in e-motor’s efficiency compared to today’s state-of-the-art. This will allow next-generation e-motor utilisation over the whole range of transportation sectors, thus, facilitating significant additional energy and CO2 savings relative to the existing EU plans.

The proposed SOSLeM project will contribute to the call objectives by improving production processes as well as developing and applying novel manufacturing technologies for FC stacks. The improvements proposed by the project will sum up to a reduction of manufacturing costs of about 70%, leading to decreased capital cost of about 2.500 €/kW. Besides these outstanding economical and technical improvements, production material will be spared and environmental benefits will be realized. Specifically, the project will: - Develop new and optimized processes for cassettes production, by avoidance brushing of cassettes, improved sealing adhesion on cassettes, automation of welding, lean manufacturing processes and anode contact layer laser welding, - Improve stack preparation, by advanced glass curing and stack conditioning and improved gas stations, - Enable environmental benefits by Cu-based instead of Co-based powder and evaluation of On-site Nickel removal from waste water - Reduce production time and costs and improve flexibility, by large furnace arrangement, introduction of a multi-stack production station, examination of substituting Co-based powder by Cu-based power, Examination of partially substituting Co-based powder by enamel coating and simultaneous sintering.

Several R&D centres herein undertake the investigation of the reduction of the abnormal combustion phenomena of knock in internal combustion engines. Combustion knock limits the efficiency of the engine and deteriorates engine performance while simultaneously contributing to engine destruction, hence reduces engine reliability. Reducing or eliminating combustion knock increases durability and also engine efficiency, hence reducing CO2 emissions. The inter-sectoral research encompassed in this proposal concerns high-power stationary engines fuelled with gaseous fuels working in combined heat and power (CHP) systems. The proposal intends to apply a multidisciplinary approach to knock investigation encompassing fuel chemistry, combustible mixture preparation, ignition phenomena, flame propagation, knock detection and its prediction. Both modelling studies and experimentation in these fields will be performed. As result of the synergies and breadth of expertise, a resultant acceleration in research finding is expected with complementary investigation conducted within both the companies (Wartsila, AVL, Motortech) and universities involved that finally should result in solving the related challenges. Knowledge exchange will be done by research staff secondments, where experienced scientists will work both as advisors and active researchers in the ongoing projects. Engineers coming to universities will be familiar with original techniques for data acquisition as well as methods for signal processing and theoretical analysis of combustion process in the engine. Young research staff from companies will have opportunities to work with academic mentors. Further academic staff will become familiar with industrial approaches to research extending the knowledge. Knowledge transfer will be also done through regularly scheduled seminars and webinars. This collaboration and staff exchanges between the participants build lasting ties and continued after project termination.