Modular Coupling System from Continental and aft automotive wins Materialica Award

October 23, 2020 11:15 pm

JoinPlas, the joint venture between technology company Continental and system supplier aft automotive, impressed the 18th Materialica Design + Technology Award judges with a synthetic modular coupling system for thermal management in vehicles. The award-winning coupling system saves material, reduces weight and optimizes media flow in vehicles both with electric drives and with internal combustion engines. That is the reason for it being honored by the judges in the Process category. “We are absolutely delighted with this award. It is an affirmation for the entire team that worked tirelessly on this development. Pooling and sharing our know-how in order to drive the future of automotive lines is a further major milestone in our partnership,” declares Arndt Nikolaus, the Continental partner in the newly established joint venture.

The complex line systems for thermal management both in electric vehicles and in vehicles with i.c. engines place high demands on the individual components. To connect these to each other, the automotive industry requires a large number of custom couplings. Previously, each coupling variant needed a dedicated injection mold. That meant high design, toolmaking and process validation costs. The modular coupling system, on the other hand, needs just two tools per diameter. The connection angle can be varied, and all the production steps can be fully automatically monitored using a camera.

Furthermore, the optimized basic design of the coupling system enables material savings of up to 15 percent and a correspondingly lower weight. To that can be added its improved performance because pressure losses are minimized while line diameters are also smaller. The right mixture of rubber, polyamide and aluminium materials and an ingenious line geometry ensure the system has adequate inherent stability.