COMPASS

Project description

The COMPASS project is driven by the needs to on the one hand increase the efficiency of recycling and remanufacturing processes (for sheet metal parts) and on the other hand by the need to find a solution for large quantities of thermoplastic fiber-reinforced components at their end of life. In both cases the proposed approach is to take a shortcut by remanufacturing the components at the level of sheet metal and composite panels instead of converting them to secondary raw material. This will be achieved through (thermo-)forming processes that allow the re-shaping of parts and components to give them a second and third life.

The COMPASS project is driven by the needs to on the one hand increase the efficiency of recycling and remanufacturing processes (for sheet metal parts) and on the other hand by the need to find a solution for large quantities of thermoplastic fiber-reinforced components at their end of life. In both cases the proposed approach is to take a shortcut by remanufacturing the components at the level of sheet metal and composite panels instead of converting them to secondary raw material. This will be achieved through (thermo-)forming processes that allow the re-shaping of parts and components to give them a second and third life.

The COMPASS project will initiate more than 6M€ of private investments in technology development and implementation of remanufacturing process in the use cases investigated in the project.
The overall goal is to enable the remanufacturing of about 30% of sheet metal parts and thermoplastic composite panels.

Project objectives and technical innovation

The COMPASS project aims to establish a circular process for sheet metal and thermoplastic components through remanufacturing, to enable their direct re-use at component level. Instead of shredding or melting the material, it will be given a new shape through re-forming processes.

The main objectives of the project are

• Development of re-shaping processes for sheet metal and thermoplastics to give components a new shape without recycling them at the level of materials.
• Design of a digital component passport, that collects design data, material data, quality data, information about any repair that is done, to support the remanufacturing process.
• Software tools that use information from the digital product passport to optimally plan the remanufacturing process.

Contribution by PROFACTOR

PROFACTOR is developing the inspection system for quality control and for transferring quality data into the digital product passport and tools for digitizing repair processes.

Application & benefits for the market, environment, and research

The COMPASS project provides an economically feasible solution for the aerospace and automotive industry to remanufacture sheet metal and thermoplastic composite parts. This will enable the industruy to cretae circular processes and reducing the need for virgin materials. The project aims at a remanufacturing rate of 30% of the components used in these domains.

The COMPASS project also generates new business models, especially for recycling companies. Currently, ctructural parts are of little or negative value, when they end up as waste. By using the information stored in digital product passports, recycling process will be more targeted and generate material fractions of higher values, so that they can be processed economically.