WP7 – Comfort and Safety Products for Sports of Leisure and Competition

This Work Package (WP) aims to integrate additive manufacturing technologies into the 2-wheel vehicle industry, covering both leisure and competitive sports. The goal is to improve production processes to ensure greater competitiveness and efficiency and to develop disruptive and optimized products that meet specific needs.

One approach focuses on applying metal additive manufacturing to create metallic components for 2-wheel vehicles by replacing current components. To achieve this, digital tools will be used to optimize mass and maximize performance. Additive manufacturing will be employed either directly or with an additional step of polymer overinjection, resulting in a hybrid product with a plastic coating and variable finish.

A second approach to this project involves the application of polymeric additive manufacturing to enhance products. The aim is to combine the versatility of additive manufacturing processes with digital tools to optimize mass and maximize performance. Here, two types of products will be created:

1. Polymeric components optimized for high-performance applications. The production process may involve assembling polymeric components with other components to create a single, functional product, or using polymeric overinjection to add specific characteristics before assembly.
2. Polymeric components for comfort-focused applications, produced directly through additive manufacturing. Development will include mass optimization studies to enhance product performance for defined specific applications.

This project will allow additive manufacturing technologies to be applied across multiple applications that improve production processes and create innovative products, combining material efficiency and design innovation to revolutionize existing products. During component development, strategies will focus on evaluating sustainability, even at the end of the product’s lifecycle. Ultimately, the project aims to assess and validate the sustainability of developed products through studies quantifying the environmental impacts associated with each product across its entire lifecycle.