The FuPro project was led by Coburg-based Brose Fahrzeugteile GmbH & Co. KG and the Institute of Lightweight Engineering and Polymer Technology (ILK) at Dresden University of Technology . In cooperation with additional partners, a new modular system was developed to combine organic sheets, fiber composite hollow sections, and injection molding compounds into highly integrative multicomponent structures in an automated process chain, for which the team received the Gold Materialica Award in the “Surface & Technology” category at eMove360° , the international Mobility 4.0 trade fair. Prior to this, the researchers had already been awarded the AVK Innovation Award 2019 in the category “Innovative procedures/processes.”

The project partners were able to show that the new process can save around 30% of the mass of a steel reference module. At the same time, the number of components and the required investment were reduced. The only slight increase was in unit cost.