Henkel has reached a material supply agreement with automotive composite wheels manufacturer, Carbon Revolution.
The collaboration includes dedicated production facilities established at Henkel’s existing plant near Melbourne.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Single piece carbon fibre composite wheels can offer up to 40% – 50% weight savings relative to conventional aluminium wheels maintains the supplier.
“Based on a number of years of close collaboration with Carbon Revolution, we have extended our portfolio of composite material technologies to create proprietary solutions that meet the demanding performance specifications of the global car makers,” said Henkel senior business development manager for Automotive Components, Konrad Brimo Hayek.
“The collaboration with Carbon Revolution is targeted at providing various global OEM carbon wheel programmes with the best solutions available and includes active support from Henkel via dual production capacities in the EU and locally in Australia.”
Carbon Revolution’s Carbon fibre composite wheels are now used on some sports cars. Henkel maintains the “significant reductions in unsprung rotational mass” translates into immediate vehicle handling benefits, from better steering feel and traction to improved accelerating and braking response thanks to the composite wheels’ lower inertia.
In terms of sustainability, the technology can also enhance fuel or electrical power efficiency and help automotive manufacturers reduce the CO2 emission balance of their fleets.
“As lightweighting components, carbon wheels can make a significant contribution to minimising the energy consumed when spinning the wheels up and dragging them back down every time the car is accelerated or slowed,” added Carbon Revolution CTO, Brett Gass.
“This saves fuel on combustion engine vehicles and battery power on hybrid and fully electric vehicles, maximising their range.
“Henkel’s material technology also adds to the overall reduction of our carbon wheels in noise, vibration and harshness when compared to steel or aluminium wheels, which means automakers can save weight on additional sound insulation.”
