📋 Tender Overview
Funding
European
European Union
Duration
01/2024
-
12/2026
Status Ongoing
Geo-spatial type Other
EU Contribution €5 476 222
Project website
https://www.biostruct-project.eu/
Project Acronym BioStruct
STRIA Roadmaps
Vehicle design and manufacturing (VDM)
Transport mode
Waterborne icon
Transport policies
Deployment planning/Financing/Market roll-out
Transport sectors
Passenger transport, Freight transport
Call for proposal HORIZON-CL4-2023-TWIN-TRANSITION-01
Link to CORDIS
CORDIS ID: 101136335
Background & Policy context
Synthetic composites, comprising carbon or glass fibre, currently pose environmental challenges, with 98 % ending up in landfills and 80 % of raw materials sourced outside Europe. In this context, the EU-funded BioStruct project aims to revolutionise structural applications through advanced bio-composites. Going beyond addressing recycling difficulties and foreign dependency, BioStruct is extending its impact into the realm of boat building. By developing an accurate draping process, creating material models that capture natural variability, and integrating nano-structured, bio-based sensors for load monitoring, the project paves the way for bio-composites in marine construction. This expansion into boat building aligns with its overarching goal of diversifying applications, showcasing a commitment to sustainable practices across industries.
Objectives
Currently, the use of bio-composites is limited to less critical applications that do not have significant requirements in terms of mechanical performance. However, the use of synthetic composites made from carbon or glass fibre has several difficulties in terms recycling and in terms of dependence on third countries. About 98% of these synthetic composites still end up in landfills and about 80% of the raw materials are currently manufactured outside of Europe. To improve this situation, the project addresses the challenges of using bio-composites for structural parts and aims to increase the range of applications in which bio-composites can be used. This will be achieved by developing an accurate draping process to control fibre orientation, by creating material models that capture the natural variability of the material and by integrating nano-structured, bio-based sensors for load monitoring. Through the increased accuracy and additional control loops in the manufacturing process the consortium expects to achieve predictable properties and constant quality.
Within the project use cases from wind energy and boat-building will be investigated, aiming at the manufacturing of a full size rotor blade and a ship hull to demonstrate the technical feasibility and achieving TRL7 for the manufacturing technologies. In addition to the end users, the consortium consists of partners from automation, machine building, measurement technology, material manufacturing and simulation software to cover all aspects of the developments. Based on the predicted grow
