At Ford Canada’s invitation, I recently spent a day at Ford headquarters in Dearborn Michigan. I was most impressed with Ford’s research in reducing the overall weight and carbon footprint in car components.
Ford Bio Materials Lab where ongoing research is replacing petroleum-based material in car components with eco-friendly sources. Soya beans in seats, wood fibres in door panels, wheat infused plastics and recycled blue jeans in sound dampening panels are game.
At the Bio Materials lab these bio-friendly materials are reducing CO2 emissions and petroleum use while increasing the amount of renewable materials inside cars.
Here are some examples:
-31,251 soybeans are used in the seat cushions and seat backs in the all-new Escape.
-Canadian wheat straw is used to re-enforce plastic storage bins and door panels, made from the wheat-plant biomass we see waving in fields.
This research was jointly funded by the Canadian government’s BioCar Initiative along with four universities, plus their industrial partners. The University of Waterloo, in Kitchener, Ontario, worked with wheat straw because it’s in the midst of a wheat farming area.
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Wheat straw has similar properties to wood fiber, hemp fiber, coconut coir (husks), and purified cellulose fiber. Experiments using each of them to reinforce injection-molded plastic parts are now underway across North America.
Prairie grasses including Big Bluestem and Indian Grass plants may one day displace glass-fiber or mineral reinforcements.
Not only will these natural fibres lower the carbon footprint in cars but will also make it lighter, contributing to better fuel efficiency.
Ellen Lee, Ford Plastics Research Technical Expert holds coin tray partially made with $160 worth of shredded dollar bills, right.
-The oddest material goes into plastic moldings in cars. Shredded dollar bills make up for about 20 per cent of the material in the pictured coin tray. That’s about $160 worth of shredded bills in that little tray!
Nia Harrison, Ford Research Engineer – Manufacturing & Processes hold feather-light magnesium truck door panel.
I also got a brief demo of Ford’s Light Weight Materials research to drastically reduce the overall car weight. A magnesium door panel is one quarter the weight of a traditional steel one and can easily be held up with one hand. Ford engineers discovered that by heating magnesium to 500 degrees centigrade it could achieve acceptable quality output in the traditional form pressure stamp process.
BLACK AND DECKER’S WRIST CONTROLLED SCREWDRIVER
One of the coolest tech tools I saw at the Las Vegas CES Showstoppers was the Black & Decker Gyro motion activated screwdriver. Using similar technologies to smartphones and tablets, you can control which way it turns a screw and how fast by simply twisting your wrist to the left or right. It has a built-in LED light for using it in dark places and comes with two bits and a wall charger.
The 4 Volt rechargeable Lithium battery holds it charge for more than 18 months and has no memory when charged after partial use. It’s simply ready when you need it.
The sensitivity of how fast or slow, right to a midpoint stop, is impressive as is its torque, enough twist power to handle any house chore. It’s small, light, costs $40 and comes with a two year warranty.
Available at Home Hardware shops and online at amazon.ca
Speaking of Lithium batteries, pricier laptops and most smartphones use Lithium batteries for its consistent and long lasting charge properties. You will notice that cheaper under $600 laptops list the number of cells for their battery power which range from three to six, but these are not as effective as Lithium which hold more power with less weight.
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