Collaborative R&D Competitions
Ford – eSHADOW
Reinforcing structures, right material, right place
Led by Ford, this collaborative industry research project aims to develop a hybrid material structural engineering tool to promote lightweight design and verification for product development processes. This project will create a lightweight multi-material solution for rolling chassis ladder frames to improve vehicle efficiency and promote adoption of zero-emission vehicle architectures and will demonstrate a new approach for engineering practices that will enable development of the next generation of electric vehicles
Multi-material solutions enabling electrified vehicle structures
Project Highlights
- Development of lightweight multi-material solutions for rolling chassis ladder frames.
- Offer 30% weight reduction compared to conventional all steel systems enabling the adoption of EV technologies without compromise to payload.
- Creation of reliable digital design tools and methodologies for predicting performance, durability and failure modes of hybrid material structures.
- Demonstrate manufacturability at scale while proving out design with vehicle demonstrators benchmarked to Ford standards.
- Total project value £8.5 million, with £4.1 million funded through the APC.
Project Consortium