Source: columbusunderground.com
Ohio’s composites industry is getting some investment in hopes that research will give domestic car makers the technology to build lightweight cars that take alternative, cleaner fuel.
The investment comes from a partnership between JobsOhio, the state’s non-profit corporation aimed at wooing outside businesses to bring jobs and money to Ohio, and Tennessee’s Institute of Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI), a group working to grow the nation’s composites industry.
Composites and carbon fiber are most relevant to Ohio in the automotive sector, but drive several other industries, including aerospace, chemicals and energy. While Ohio leads the United States in the automotive industry, second only to Michigan, domestic automotive manufacturers are behind the rest of the world when it comes to building tanks that can store natural gas.
“The specific portion of IACMI work to take place in Ohio will be led by the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) and feature full-scale manufacturing work cells in addition to supporting small business incubation and workforce development in partnership with Sinclair Community College,” according to the press release.
Brian Rice, Division Head for Multi-Scale Composites and Polymers at UDRI, said research will be focused on “developing light-weight materials that can be used to reduce the energy footprint in our nation.”
“For competitiveness we’re using this program to help the Fords and Chryslers and Hondas,” he said, comparing the companies to Germany’s BMW, which engineered the I3 and I8 models made from aluminum and carbon fiber rather than steel.
“If you replace metal with composites you can reduce the weight of a structure by 50 percent,” Rice said. “You can imagine that if your car is lighter, it’s going to use less fuel; you’re going to get a better fuel economy out of it.”
A lightweight structure with a tank that can store natural gas, a cleaner alternative fuel, is the ultimate goal for IACMI and UDRI researchers. The auto industry has been slowly moving toward compressed natural gas (CNG) tanks, storing a fuel with a cost half that of gasoline.
These interests are directly tied to Ohio’s own burgeoning shale industry. According to a report by ODNR’s Division of Oil and Gas Resources, shale well drilling during the first quarter of this year resulted in 329 billion cubic feet of natural gas, and more than 5.5 million barrels of oil, a 24 percent and 80 percent increase from the year before, respectively.
Combining independent energy production with a growing workforce in composites manufacturing and a leading automotive industry, Rice said JobsOhio and IACMI was the perfect match.
“There’s about 24,000 jobs in Ohio today associated with composites,” he said. “This program will help us build on that success or that capability, and also we’ll take advantage of the new technologies to make Ohio more competitive. It really plays to Ohio’s strengths.”
For more information, visit www.jobs-ohio.com.