Composite Stabiliser Bar Competes for National Automotive Engineering Award

Tinsley Bridge with partners Performance Engineering Solutions PES and AMRC Composites Centre will be competing against other ground-breaking projects for a prestigious national engineering innovation award.

The shortlisted Lightweight Metal Composite Hybrid (LiMeCH) project created a hybrid metal/composite anti roll bar; a key part of a vehicle’s suspension unit.

Currently the volume automotive sector uses steel tube welded to metallic end fittings, for functional parts such as suspension systems. The project has shown that replacing the steel anti-roll bar tube with lighter materials such as carbon fibre composites, can reduce component weight by 30%, improve fuel efficiency, and help operators meet new emissions regulations.

Another bonus is that composite materials are less affected by fatigue and so their use can deliver increased reliability without compromising performance.

“Lightweighting is top of the agenda for our customers,” said Russell Crow, director of engineering at Tinsley Bridge. “That is even more so when they are looking at alternative propulsion systems, such as electric drive trains and alternative fuels, because every gram they can save offsets the additional mass they have to carry for the batteries or hydrogen fuel tank.”