Shortly after the last day on which this year's IAA in Frankfurt was open to the public, EDAG Engineering GmbH gave a positive verdict on its appearance at Europe's largest motor show.
The globally active engineering company welcomed over 900 trade visitors to its stand in Hall 5.1, where it presented its concepts for future lightweight design in the automotive industry. The IAA is not only the industry's largest trade fair in Europe, but also an important platform for manufacturers and suppliers to introduce and present new technologies.
With the German premiere of the "EDAG Light Cocoon" concept car, the Wiesbaden engineering specialists provided a visionary outlook for new lightweight strategies. Instead of using lightweight materials such as aluminium, carbon or magnesium, the Cocoon has an organic skeleton structure in which material is only actually used in areas where it is absolutely necessary for safety and stability. Not until the advent of additive manufacturing (3D printing) did it become possible for such complex structures to be implemented. The Wiesbaden-based design engineering company have examples of technology which show that the combination of bionic design and additive manufacturing is not just pure Utopia, and these could soon become reality.
For instance, the company presented a combination of additively manufactured body nodes and extruded sections for future body structures. This extremely flexible, load path-optimised spaceframe structure is an attractive solution that will enable the wide variety of derivatives, variants and drive concepts to be managed economically in the future. With the first fully functional, ready-for-approval, additively manufactured model of a headlight and a cooling plate for an on-board charger housing that has also been printed, EDAG documented the potential of additive manufacturing methods for the near automotive future.
Apart from the technical innovations that were being presented, the EDAG stand also offered potential future staff the chance to find out more about entry and career opportunities in the fascinating world of automotive development. An offer that was used to the full by school and university students during the 11 public days.