Altair Enlighten Award for Glass fiber reinforced

Asahi Kasei received the Altair Enlight­en Award 2018 in the Enabling Tech­nol­o­gy cat­e­go­ry for a glass fiber rein­forced polyamide 66 ped­al brack­et devel­oped joint­ly with Maz­da Motor Cor­po­ra­tion. The award cer­e­mo­ny was held in Michi­gan, the US, on July 30, 2018.
The Altair Enlight­en Award is pre­sent­ed by Altair Engi­neer­ing Inc. in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Cen­ter for Auto­mo­tive Research (CAR), media part­ners SAE Inter­na­tion­al, and media spon­sor Auto­mo­bil Indus­trie. The award in the three cat­e­gories of Full Vehi­cle, Mod­ule, and Enabling Tech­nol­o­gy is giv­en to auto­mo­tive man­u­fac­tur­ers and sup­pli­ers to hon­or inno­v­a­tive achieve­ments in vehi­cle lightweighting.
Asahi Kasei’s Leona polyamide 66 with glass fiber rein­force­ment was used to devel­op a sub­sti­tute for met­al brack­ets installed in an exist­ing mod­el of a Maz­da vehi­cle. The firm’s topol­o­gy opti­miza­tion tech­nol­o­gy, a kind of com­put­er aid­ed engi­neer­ing (CAE), was used to achieve inno­v­a­tive design of the part, enabling an 83% weight reduc­tion. The com­pa­ny received the Award in recog­ni­tion of this remark­able development.
The com­pa­ny pro­motes the use of plas­tic as a sub­sti­tute for met­al parts to reduce vehi­cle weight for improved fuel econ­o­my. Lever­ag­ing its unique plas­tic CAE tech­nol­o­gy and know-how to pre­dict process­abil­i­ty and ser­vice life of the applied poly­mer, Asahi Kasei makes pro­pos­als on the opti­mum part shape and mold design, in addi­tion to select­ing the best resin and devel­op­ing mate­ri­als.  Asahi Kasei Plas­tics Viet­nam Co., Ltd. was estab­lished In March 2016 to rein­force those func­tions and swift­ly respond to grow­ing glob­al demand for plas­tic part design.