This week at the Automotive Interiors trade fair in Stuttgart (Germany), the Eurecat technology centre is showcasing new technological solutions and innovations which include shape-memory fabrics, visual comfort and electroluminescent filaments along with smart plastics to add functionalities to car interior materials.
The automotive industry “is fully engaged in digital transformation and also embedding new innovative solutions tapping new materials and processes leading to more customised, versatile and energy-efficient products and designs,” says Alfred Beltran, Head of Business Development for the Automotive Market at Eurecat.
Here, the technology centre is innovating to get functional fabrics for car interiors “by using additives which make it possible to produce yarns with a specific response to the effects of light or temperature, making them glow or change colour,” adds Virginia Garcia, director of Eurecat’s Functional Fabrics Unit, alongside electroluminescent textiles based on printed light.
Eurecat is also displaying the innovation in the Confort-TEX project aimed at developing and adding shape-memory polymer filaments to textile structures. The project seeks to optimise and characterise these new fabrics to increase their elasticity and adaptability without compromising breathability.
Ultra-thin smart interface for the new generation of cars
For the inclusion of functionalities in materials, Eurecat is presenting the Púlsar project in which it has developed a smart plastic surface just 3 millimetres thick which has an interface that allows users to communicate with a machine, software or intuitive system with built-in LED lighting and capacitive sensors which is expected to be embedded in the central electronic system of the new generation of cars.
The innovation has been developed at Eurecat’s plastronics pilot plant specialised in functional printing and embedded devices and which enables the “integration of low-cost, high-performance printed electronics inside plastic structural parts,” adds Paul Lacharmoise, the director of Eurecat’s Functional Printing and Embedded Devices Unit.