What if your car could be both safer and lighter? The automotive industry faces a constant balancing act: making vehicles lighter to cut emissions without compromising passenger safety. The FlexCrash project is tackling this challenge head-on through innovative manufacturing techniques and advanced materials.
Rethinking crash-resistant car structures
Lightweight vehicles help reduce CO₂ emissions, but lighter doesn’t always mean safer. Traditional safety features rely on heavy materials that absorb energy in a crash, but more weight can also lead to more severe collisions. FlexCrash aims to solve this paradox by designing smart, lightweight aluminium structures that offer high crash resistance without the weight penalty.
One of FlexCrash’s breakthroughs is hybrid manufacturing, which combines conventional methods like extrusion and high-pressure die casting with additive manufacturing (a type of industrial 3D printing). This allows engineers to reinforce only the necessary areas of a vehicle’s structure, reducing weight while boosting safety where it matters most.
At the heart of this is Laser Metal Deposition (LMD), a technology that precisely adds aluminium material in selected shapes and spots. Using recycled aluminium alloys, this method minimizes environmental impact while delivering strength and flexibility.
Smarter designs with functional features
FlexCrash introduces “Adding-Value Functional Features (AVFF)”, tiny 3D-printed patterns that improve performance by absorbing energy, reducing vibrations, or guiding how a component deforms in a crash. These features allow engineers to customise how a car reacts in an accident, leading to safer outcomes for passengers.
To speed up development and increase efficiency, the project is using new testing methods that can predict crash behaviour without relying on full-scale crash tests. These methods also allow engineers to assess fatigue performance. Combined with advanced materials and crash simulation models, these lab-based techniques analyse how materials and structures fail under impact or repeated stress, enabling faster and more precise design refinement than ever before.
Figure 1: AVFF or linear 3D geometric pattern deposited on aluminum sheet
Preparing for tomorrow’s mobility
With the rise of autonomous vehicles and new mobility trends, vehicle safety systems must adapt. FlexCrash is developing structures that can respond in real-time to collision threats, guided by data from advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).
The project also explores emerging safety needs using a virtual driving simulation platform, which helps researchers and regulators anticipate risks in mixed traffic environments where human and AI drivers share the road.
The FlexCrash project is not just about making safer vehicles, it’s about reimagining how we build them, using smarter materials, flexible manufacturing, and data-driven design. With the collaboration of researchers, industry partners, and policymakers, FlexCrash is paving the way toward safer, lighter, and greener mobility for everyone.
Authors: Eurecat
