Developing a new, faster certification methodology for thermoplastics

2024-01-24

Characterisation studies and validation testing are core processes when researching and developing new materials. These tests provide insight into the properties and behaviour of materials under different conditions, ensuring that they are suitable to be used in a variety of industries and applications, including manufacturing of parts for the aerospace, naval, automotive and rail industries, public structures, medical devices and more.

However, time is a critical factor in industry, and the prediction of advanced thermoplastic material properties with correctly parameterised long-term (lifetime) behaviour poses a major challenge, given the time-consuming and expensive characterisation techniques and the challenges that come with building computational simulations. 

Accelerating testing

The CRITERION: aCcelerate cReep lifeTimE pRedictiON project, which Leartiker is participating in, has been launched in response to this situation and with a view to delivering accelerated response times. The aim of this collaborative industrial research initiative is to develop a new methodology for the certification of thermoplastics that will accelerate current testing by up to ten times – a method for accelerating creep endurance tests in combination with functional printing techniques and artificial intelligence to predict the behaviour of the materials under study.

CEP – Centro Español de Plásticos, Functional Print Cluster, ZATEC S.A., RADICI PLASTICS IBERICA SL, Reiner Group, Data Value Management, Centro Stirling and Centro Tecnológico Leartiker are the members of the project consortium which, through a combination of experimental tests, physical-mathematical modelling and the use of artificial intelligence and virtual simulation tools, hopes to be able to predict the long-term properties of advanced thermoplastics.

(Smart Plastics Congress - presentation of the CRITERION project)

Project presentation at the Smart Plastics Congress 2024

The ninth Smart Plastics Congress was celebrated in Barcelona on 22 and 23 January. This year's edition focused on plastronics, printed electronics and surface functionalisation. The CRITERION project was one of the technical conferences held at the congress to showcase the results of research projects and the latest technological developments.

Arancha Sánchez from the Centro Stirling and our colleague Udane Astobitza gave a presentation on this initiative, which led to an enriching exchange of ideas and questions among the attendees.

The CRITERION project is funded by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism through the grant programme to support Innovative Business Groups (“Agrupaciones Empresariales Innovadoras (AEI)”) under Spain’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.