MAN
Since 1758: MAN, focused on activities in the areas of transport and energy, that offer long-term global opportunities. MAN supplies trucks, buses, vans, diesel engines, turbomachinery, and special gear units and holds leading market positions in all divisions. The MAN Group is one of Europe’s leading commercial vehicle and mechanical engineering groups. MAN’s business activities are grouped into two business areas: Commercial Vehicles, comprising MAN Truck & Bus and MAN Latin America, and Power Engineering, featuring MAN Diesel & Turbo and Renk.
In AEROFLEX, MAN has been assigned the task of the Project Co-ordination, being Mr Ben Kraaijenhagen the designated person as Project Co-ordinator. MAN is leading WP9 Coordination, management and administration and WP2 Advanced Energy Management Powertrain and is participating in many others WPs.
Website: www.man.eu
Country: Germany
DAF
DAF Trucks N.V. is a wholly owned subsidiary of the North-American corporation PACCAR Inc. DAF Trucks’ core activities are focused on the development, production, marketing and sale of medium and heavy-duty commercial vehicles. DAF Trucks has production facilities in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, in Westerlo, Belgium and in Ponta Grossa, Brasil. Thanks to its high efficiency and the world class manufacturing and products, the company has established a strong competitive position on the European market.
Within AEROFLEX, DAF will have a main contribution in the generation and evaluation of aerodynamic concepts as part of work package 3. In close cooperation with project partner NLR (Netherlands Aerospace Centre), DAF will provide their specific knowledge on the aerodynamic analysis of heavy duty vehicles and their applications, whereas NLR has relevant knowledge available from the aerospace domain which is highly valuable to the investigations related to active aerodynamic measures proposed in the project.
Website: www.daf.com
Country: Netherlands
IVECO
"In the AEROFLEX project, IVECO has the responsibility of work package 5 with the task of study an Innovative Front End Design for more Safety. IVECO coordinates the activities related to the development of an innovative safer truck front end, integrating active and passive safety solutions in order to reduce the injuries and fatalities, making trucks safer for vulnerable road users and more compatible with other vehicles. The final aim is to provide feasible proposals for the future regulatory framework that makes goods handling on Europe's roads safer."
Alessio Sarcoli – IVECO
IVECO is a brand of CNH Industrial. CNHI is a global leader in the capital goods sector with established industrial experience, a wide range of products and a worldwide presence. IVECO is one of the world leaders in road transport. It designs, manufactures and sells a wide range of light, medium and heavy commercial vehicles for road and off-road use. The key players in its product line-up are the Daily, a vehicle that covers the 2.8 – 7 ton vehicle weight segment, the Eurocargo from 6 – 18 tons, the Trakker (dedicated to off-road missions) and the Stralis, both over 16 tons. The company places an emphasis on its innovation practices in order to continuously improve and enhance its technologies. Innovation follows the guiding principles of Sustainability and Customer Obsession.
IVECO’s vision in the outcome of AEROFLEX is to have a modes of transportation that reach a destination in the most efficient, ecological and safe way. The aim is to design, develop, realize and test new and highly efficient system architecture for Heavy Commercial Vehicles using a modular approach in terms of layout and subsystems. The new architecture will allow the solution applicability to the complete on road product line.
Website: www.iveco.com
Country: Italy
SCANIA
Scania is a part of Volkswagen Truck & Bus GmbH and one of the world’s leading manufacturers of trucks and buses for heavy transport applications.
Scania has the lead in the development/research of the aerodynamic measures to be investigated in Aeroflex . The initial task is planning of the work package, which includes a detailed time plan for sub-tasks and deliveries and defining the baseline model and methodology for the tests and simulations. Scania has a long history of working with advanced numerical simulations in several fields of application, including computational fluid dynamics. To this end a wide range of state-of-the-art software is in use for aeroacoustics, aerodynamics and other fluid dynamics research.
Website: www.scania.com
Country: Sweden
VOLVO
The Volvo Group is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of trucks, buses and construction equipment, drive systems for marine and industrial applications, and services. Founded in 1927, Volvo Group has approximately 101 000 employees today, production in 18 countries and sales activities in some 190 markets.
In the Aeroflex project will focus on the evaluation of transport flows and the conditions for transport industry actors to implement new and efficient vehicle combinations, the communication framework for distributed hybrid drivelines, and the management of WP4 Smart loading units.
Website: www.volvogroup.com
Country: Sweden
Centro Ricerche Fiat
CRF (Centro Ricerche Fiat), headquartered in Orbassano (Turin) with other branch sites in Italy, was established in 1978. As a focal point for research activities of FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles), CRF has the mission to:
- develop and transfer innovative powertrains, vehicle systems and features, materials, processes and methodologies together with innovation expertise in order to improve the competitiveness of FCA products;
- represent FCA in European collaborative research programs, joining pre-competitive projects and promoting networking actions;
- support FCA in the protection and enhancement of intellectual property.
The CRF research activities imply strategic competences not only in the field of automotive engineering,
but also in the fields of manufacturing, advanced materials, ICT and electronics, as well as a wide range of state-of-the-art laboratories and extensive test facilities, including advanced engine & vehicle testing facilities, EMC chambers and a dynamic driving simulator with immersive virtual reality.
Website: www.crf.it
Country: Italy
Uniresearch
Since 1994, Uniresearch, an independent grant-consultancy company, has specialised in the startup and management of technology innovations. The company provides high-quality services helping clients find funding opportunities and prepare applications for regional, national, and pan-European grants like the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7) and Horizon2020. Uniresearch’s full services support customers throughout each stage of a research and innovation project: from project definition, through consortium-building and proposal writing, to contract negotiation, project execution, and dissemination of results. In fact, Uniresearch customers enjoy a success rate for European grants that is three times higher than the average.
Website: www.uniresearch.com
Country: Netherlands
Schmitz Cargobull
Schmitz Cargobull is both market and technology leader in the European trailer and commercial vehicles industry. The company was founded in 1892 as a smithy and has developed into the largest European manufacturer of trailers and semitrailers. We supply articulated truck bodies for food and refrigerated transportation, articulated platforms and curtainsiders for general cargo and commercial finished products (steel, paper, drinks) and tippers for bulk products.
In AEROFLEX, SCB will participate in WP2 in developing new wireless interface solutions together with the project partners for a safe communication between truck and trailers with high bandwidth and flexibility which is applicable for data exchange in general and for energy management functions in particular and bring in a trailer manufacturer point of view.
Website: www.cargobull.com
Country: Germany
Van Eck Trailers
Van Eck is a Dutch family business which was set up in 1912. Within the entire Van Eck organisation, around 150 people are busy working on the construction and maintenance of the latest road transport means. The vehicles of Van Eck are the result of a consistent innovation strategy. The main theme therein is our continuous quest to increase loading capacity and produce CO2-reducing transport solutions. Partly by applying new technologies, Van Eck helps carriers to meet both the economic requirements and the increasingly stricter legislation as well as the social pressure in the field of the environment.
Within this context, Van Eck believes that caring for the environment is a perpetual duty towards future generations. This belief forms an important guideline in the activities of the Van Eck Group.
Website: www.vanecktrailers.com
Country: the Netherlands
TIRSAN
Tırsan Solutions is the umbrella brand for the trailer solutions engineered and manufactured under three companies: Tırsan Treyler A.Ş., Kässbohrer Fahrzeugwerke GmbH and Talson Trailer B.V.. Tırsan Solutions engineers the right trailer solutions for customers through the long-term partnerships build with them. Thanks to its R&D competence and production capability, Tırsan Solutions offers the widest product range with over 800 different types of semi-trailers. Tırsan Solutions R&D center is located at Adapazari. This R&D center has 100 in-house researchers consisting from engineering and other technical/scientific branches from different areas. Capacity may be expanded in case of need by cooperating engineering partners and Universities. Tırsan Solutions R&D center is capable of developing automotive products from concept design to SOP including all prototyping and component and vehicle level testing phases.
In AEROFLEX; on behalf of Tırsan and Kässbohrer companies, Tırsan Solutions is assigned to take part in three different work packages.
Website: www.tirsansolutions.com
Country: Turkey
CREO Dynamics
“By participating in AEROFLEX we wish to grow our network and sharpen our abilities in the field of heavy vehicle aerodynamics, develop novel concepts, and ultimately, strengthen our portfolio of product innovations.”
Torbjörn Larsson, Senior Technical Specialist & Team Leader, Creo Dynamics
Creo Dynamics is a small engineering enterprise with core competences in fluid mechanics, acoustics and structural dynamics. Our business strategy includes product innovation, consulting and research. Creo Dynamics participates frequently in national and international research programs where focus often is on the development of new emerging technologies for the automotive or aerospace industry. Creo Dynamics has a large and growing portfolio of innovations and patents.
In AEROFLEX, Creo Dynamics will primarily contribute to task 3.3 of WP3 being devoted to CFD analysis of various concepts. However, involvements in tasks 3.1 (Planning), 3.2 (Concept Generation) and task 3.6 (Results Presentation) are also anticipated.
Creo Dynamics holds a dedicated team of highly qualified engineers with vast experiences and knowledge from automotive external aerodynamics simulations and CFD methodology and we have collaborated with several automotive OEM´s in the past. Combined we own more than 60 man-years of experience from aerodynamics simulations and CFD.
Website: www.creodynamics.com
Country: Sweden
MICHELIN
"I expect the Aeroflex project to deliver the demonstration that new vehicle architecture are a key lever to takle the stakes of CO2 emission of freight road transport. We also support the project to explain how the tires are involved in this new vehicle performance."
Frederic Domprobst - Michelin
Michelin is a French company leader of tire industry. Michelin is dedicated to sustainably improving the mobility of goods and people by manufacturing and marketing tires and services for every type of vehicle, including airplanes, passenger cars, bicycles/motorcycles, earthmovers, farm equipment and trucks.
In the AEROFLEX project Michelin propose to contribute to the ‘advanced energy management powertrain’ with following activities:
- To give recommendations on the most adapted tire size and performance trade off (what includes indeed trade-off between rolling resistance and traction for driven Dolly Axles) taking into account the usage targeted for this kind of vehicle.
- To supply the tire data package necessary to assess the convoy performance according to the consortium expectations.
- To supply the tires for WP6 demonstrator from our market product portfolio the closest it is possible from task 1 recommendation with benchmark rolling resistance and performance trade off.
Website: www.michelin.com
Country: France
ZF Friedrichshafen
"The quantity of goods to be transported has risen sharply in recent years. It is therefore paramount to develop new technologies that reduce fuel consumption and at the same time increase the efficiency of freight transport. The ambitious and innovative AEROFLEX project gives us a unique opportunity to develop aerodynamic and flexible trucks in cooperation with other stakeholders to meet the challenges of this fast-growing market."
ZF Friedrichshafen
August 2020
ZF Friedrichshafen: With the acquisition of WABCO, ZF complements its range of commercial vehicle technology. As already in the passenger car segment, the ZF Group now also boasts a unique and complete range of driveline, chassis and safety technology solutions for trucks, buses and movers.
WABCO is a world-leading supplier of technologies and control systems for the safety and efficiency of commercial vehicles. The aerodynamic team of WABCO has more than 30 year experience in developing aerodynamic drag reduction devices for bluff road vehicles for both the European and North American market.
WABCO will participate in the two main subprojects, AEMPT and Aerodynamics of the Aeroflex project.
- For AEMPT WABCO will provide the brake system technology for the vehicles to be equipped. WABCO will also develop together with the project partners required data interfaces and protocols for the brake system interaction with the power management systems. WABCO will additionally develop and provide wireless communication technology for the required data handling between several vehicle combination parts and components.
- In the aerodynamics work package WABCO will develop and provide several adjustable aerodynamic drag reduction devices for truck and trailers like tails and skirts as well as other aerodynamic improving applications. WABCO will take the technological lead for several subtasks within work package 3.
Website: www.wabco-auto.com
Country: Germany
Chalmers University of Technology
"In the AEROFLEX project, Prof. Robert Thomson, Dr. András Bálint, Dr. Giulio Bianchi Piccinini and Ron Schindler at Chalmers University are responsible to collect and analyze existing field data and prepare scenarios for assessment of safety impact of the project. Furthermore, benefit analyses of proposed safety solutions will be performed and recommendations for new regulations, standards, and policies prepared."
Chalmers is a university of technology, founded in 1829 and located in Gothenburg, Sweden. At this university, research and teaching are conducted on a broad front within technology, natural science and architecture. Chalmers has been involved in EU funded research projects since 1989 and is, on a continuous basis, involved in approximately 200 projects within different EU programmes, mainly the Framework Programmes. The Accident Prevention group within the Vehicle Safety Division, Department of Mechanics and Maritime Sciences, conducts world-leading research on topics ranging from normal driving behavior to the events leading to on-road crashes. Additional research addresses the development of methods to assess the safety impact of in-vehicle active safety systems. Much of our research involves the analysis of quantitative data collected naturalistically. These data and their analysis is often used as a basis for controlled experiments, mathematical simulations and driver modelling.
Website: www.chalmers.se
Country: Sweden
DLR German Aerospace Center
“Based on the expected increase of road freight transport demand, I am working in project AEROFLEX to improve transport efficiency and reduce energy consumption by ton-kilometres. I contribute to find the right use cases and vehicle concepts that might be suitable for the shippers, logistics service providers and transport companies in the next decades.”
Andreas Lischke - DLR
The DLR German Aerospace Center is the national aeronautics and space research centre of the Federal Republic of Germany. Its extensive research and development work in aeronautics, space, energy, transport and security is integrated into national and international cooperative ventures.
Within the AEROFLEX project, the main task of DLR Institute of Transport Research is to identify new vehicle concepts with a high market potential and estimate changes to the truck fleet and modal shift due to these vehicle concepts. The institute has the lead in WP1. DLR will identify possible improvements of loading units from an intermodal perspective (WP4) and analyse regulations and standards in logistics with relevance for vehicle concepts (WP7). In this project a transport demand model for freight transport in Europe is used to calculate the impact of several transport parameters on modal split and vehicle kilometers.
Website: www.dlr.de
Country: Germany
Fraunhofer
Fraunhofer is Europe’s largest application-oriented research organization with more than 80 research units, including 67 Fraunhofer Institutes, at different locations in Germany. Their research efforts are geared entirely to people’s needs: health, security, communication, energy and the environment.
In the AEROFLEX project two Fraunhofer Insitutes will be involved: The Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastrucutre Systems (IVI) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics (IML).
- The Fraunhofer IVI employs over 100 researchers in four departments, collaborating closely with the universities TU Dresden and TU Bergakademie Freiberg. The institute is operating in a wide array of transport-related research and development topics, spanning amongst others the fields of vehicle propulsion, electromobility, traffic planning and new vehicle concepts. Fraunhofer IVI’s facilities are the home of high-performance laboratories (including a test track), innovative test platforms and vehicles.
- The Fraunhofer IML employs over 250 researchers. We work out new logistics solutions together with our customers from realization of soft- or hardware solutions, optimization of internal and external logistics up to analyzing markets and innovations.
Website: www.fraunhofer.de
Country: Germany
HAN
"Road freight transport is the dominant transport mode in EU, which cannot meet the future environmental targets, if remains unchanged. AEROFLEX with its goals builds a bridge towards more sustainable, productive and profitable road freight transport. HAN Automotive Research is proud to contribute with the assessment of new vehicle demonstrators against the concept of future regulatory framework, which is developed in cooperation with Conference of European Directors of Roads (CEDR) within FALCON project."
Karel Kural - HAN
HAN is one of the biggest Universities of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. The knowledge span is very broad from engineering, economy, law, bio science up to IT and communication. The one involved in this project; HAN Automotive research, has an extensive experience and track list in the commercial vehicle assessment, model based design, and testing.
In AEROFLEX, HAN Automotive Research will be involved in WP1, WP6, and WP7. The main tasks are related to the development of vehicle simulation models, and quantitative verification of the models through the experimental testing. HAN possesses a generic modelling library of commercial vehicles, developed in preceding projects, that is customized for the assessment of the vehicle performance against the performance-based, legislative framework. The definition of state of the art performance-based regulatory framework that address the vehicle features, developed in the WP2-5, reflecting on vehicle behaviour, infrastructure impact will be also co-assigned to HAN. The outputs will be subsequently used as a main input to the recommendations for future standards and regulatory framework.
Website: www.han.nl
Country: the Netherlands
IDIADA
IDIADA, as a global partner to the automotive industry, provides complete solutions for automotive development projects worldwide.
The core services IDIADA provides are: Engineering, Proving Ground and Homologation. Main fields of engineering activity are powertrain, emissions, noise & vibration, vehicle dynamics, electronics, fatigue & durability and active and passive safety. Related to the AEROFLEX project IDIADA demonstrates expertise in different areas:
- Regarding regulations, IDIADA holds the representation of the Spanish Government in several bodies dealing with automotive research and regulation, such as EEVC (European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee) and UN ECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) Working Groups. In the same way, IDIADA is member of several working groups in GRSP, Euro NCAP and ISO.
- From powertrain capabilities our multidisciplinary team, include experts in the fields of emissions measuring as well as a complete set of proving grounds, laboratories and test bench for all powertrain functionalities development, equipment, portable on-board units, adapted tools and in-house software for measuring, comparing and assessing emissions.
- IDIADA develops a major role under the frame of Euro NCAP, representing the Catalan Government in the Board of Directors and being the only laboratory fully accredited for executing all tests (active and passive) under the safety programme. This is complemented with high experience team on crash pedestrian simulation and front-end design.
IDIADA will be a key partner in several activities to be conducted in AEROFLEX, specifically taking the lead in the Work Package 6 dealing with the definition of the demonstration and use cases, also as leader in work package 7 defining regulation and standards. Furthermore, IDIADA’s involvement will also be notable in WP5 supporting the activities of developing the requirements for a front-end design more friendly with VRU.
Website: www.applusidiada.com
Country: Spain
Netherlands Aerospace Centre
The Netherlands Aerospace Centre (NLR) is the independent knowledge enterprise in the Netherlands on aerospace. The overall mission is making air transport and space exploration safer, more sustainable and more efficient. NLR’s multidisciplinary approach focuses on developing new and cost effective technologies for aviation and space, from design support to production technology and MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul). NLR works closely together with their daughter institute German-Dutch Wind Tunnels DNW in many scientific projects where experimental results are generated for concept verification and validation. The in-house developed CFD-models at NLR therefore have a long history of validation against experimental data for a wide range of applications of aerodynamic, aeroelastic and aeroacoustic nature.
The main task of NLR in AEROFLEX, consists of the provision of aerospace aerodynamics expertise, both for advanced flow analysis, concept options for drag reduction, and flow control. The expertise on computational active flow control at NLR feeds into scientific advice to support the definition of the concept analysis, experimental campaigns, and demonstrator set-up including certification related issues.
Website: www.nlr.org
Country: Netherlands
Transport en Mobility Leuven
“Aeroflex is about developing new vehicle concepts, but priorities have to be set based on market demand. At TML, our aim is to help discover the elements of market demand for freight and logistic services that will be most relevant in the future. Furthermore, I am very much looking forward to getting a glimpse of the process behind vehicle development. Hopefully in about 10 years’ time, I’ll be able to point to an Aeroflex truck on the road and tell my children that I helped create it!”
Tim Breemersch - TML
Transport & Mobility Leuven NV (TML) conducts applied research to support policy decisions. It is our mission to help society by offering scientifically sound analyses. To this end, we rely on quantitative research: modelling, statistical analyses, simulations, and prognoses. Our focus is both scientific and practical: we are the bridge between the university and society. Our clients are the European Commission, national governments and administrations, local and regional authorities as well as sector associations and non-profit organizations. They base their policy on our analyses and prognoses.
TML’s role in the AEROFLEX project will be to assess the market potential of the new truck designs for the 2025-2035 horizon. We will review current market conditions for different vehicle and commodity types, and help create projections for the relevant operational markets, all as part of WP1.
Website: www.tmleuven.be
Country: Belgium
TNO
"TNO is proud and happy to be part of the Aeroflex consortium. Our main drive and goal is to support the development of efficient long haul transport by vehicle-in-the-loop testing of the distributed powertrain and by an independent assessment of the impact of the Aeroflex innovations on energy efficiency and CO2 emissions."
Gert-Jan Koornneef – TNO
TNO (Nederlandse Organisatie voor toegepast-natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek TNO) is one of the major independent research organisaties in Europe. In the theme of Transport and Mobility applied research is carried out for the automotive industry and related branches. The expertise covers relevant technological aspects as well as the influence of human behaviour. The focus is on innovation in the areas of reliable transport systems and safe and clean mobility.
In AEROFLEX, the key activity of TNO is to assess the impact of the new developed technologies in the project on the key performance indicators, such as transport efficiency, fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Since the new technologies will impact transport efficiency on different system levels, existing assessment tools will be coupled and updated in order to assess the impact on a ton-km basis.
Website: www.tno.nl
Country: Netherlands
Medizinische Hochschule Hannover
Medizinische Hochschule Hannover (MHH) is a supra-regional Hospital and a Medical University in the capital of Lower Saxony. It is one of two research teams of the German In-Depth Accident Study (GIDAS) which is a joint venture between Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) and the German Association for Research in Automobile Technology (FAT). Besides the on-the-spot accident investigation the MHH Accident Research Unit is a specialist in analyzing accident data, e.g., the GIDAS data, regional and national accident data. MHH has access to the GIDAS accident data and the police accident data of the German State Lower Saxony. In addition analysis of German National data can be ordered by the German National Office for Statistics.
MHH is contributing to the ‘innovative front end design for more safety’ by conducting high quality detailed truck accident statistics for Germany including the possibility to scale the GIDAS data to other countries based on similar variables in GIDAS and the country of interest. Analysis of reconstructed truck accident data from GIDAS and possibly a wider investigation area from a local project in order to better define scenarios of interest. Analysis of the Accident Causation of truck accidents. Reanalysis of the truck driver interview for specific research questions such as active safety system development.
Website: www.mh-hannover.de
Country: Germany
International Union for Road-Rail Combined Transport
The International Union for Road-Rail Combined Transport (UIRR) was created in 1970 and has a liaison office in Brussels since 1988. Its main objective is to represent the interests of CT operators and terminal managers mainly offering Road-Rail solutions to the freight logistics market. The UIRR member companies concentrate a variety of functions and roles within the Combined Transport chain: the commercialisation role (CT trains), the transhipment task (terminal operator), the rolling stock function (wagon owner/keeper or lessee) and the traction role (railway undertaking).
UIRR will be active in the WP4 ‘Smart loading units’ with the task to identify the current constraints of aerodynamic devices in Road-Rail Combined Transport (technically, operationally and administratively) and to assess concepts specifically in terms of market acceptance and of intermodal compatibility
Website: www.uirr.com
Country: Belgium
