Funding awarded from the U.K. to produce lighter vehicles

English carbon-fiber manufacturer Sigmatex has been awarded funding from the U.K. through the Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative (AMSCI) for a project that aims to produce higher volumes of composites in the U.K. to accelerate the building of lighter vehicles.

The Sigmatex Lightweighting Excellence Programme (LX) has been awarded 3.8 million pounds (U.S. $5.6 million) from the latest AMSCI round of funding. The LX consortium will address the lack of capability in the automotive sector to manufacture composite components at high volumes in the U.K. by connecting the key elements of designing, manufacturing and creating capacity for production.

The lightweighting program is led by Sigmatex in partnership with Caparo Advanced Composites, Cranfield University, Expert Tooling & Automation, Granta Design, Group Rhodes, LMAT, Surface Generation, and Tilsatec and with support from Axillium Research and Axillium Lightfellows. Three U.K.-based automotive OEMs will work closely with the LX manufacturing and technical partners.

Source: Sigmatex