km : Automotive News

You have to love the Italians. Lamborghini can announce something that seems highly technological like, say an Advanced Composites Research Center (ACRC), yet when they show pictures like the one above, it still looks like a mom and pop shop. At least the company's German overlords painted the walls laboratory white.

"The consistent development of carbon-fiber technology is a key element of our strategy,” says Stephan Winkelmann, President and CEO of Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. “The most important parameter for super sportscars is, now as in the future, the weight-to-power ratio; therefore, as there is a limit to power increase due to emission regulations, we must work on weight reduction. Extensive use of carbon fiber, even at structural level, allows Lamborghini to be at the forefront of development techniques. The real difference is in the correct use of technologies and materials to satisfy technical and financial concerns. This is what the Center is all about.”

Lamborghini of course already uses carbon weaves here and there. The Countach and later, the Diablo, pioneered much of that, and today's Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera makes extensive use of the stuff to trim 70 kg from a normal Gallardo's curb weight.



The new ACRC is a facility measuring 2600 square meters and employing 30 engineers and technicians who will be dedicated to building new prototype components that should hopefully make it into production soon. Rumor has it the replacement for the Murcielago will even use a full carbon fiber structure in place of today's steel. The ACRC is fitted with state-of-the-art equipment, such as a test laboratory with sophisticated testing and measuring devices, automated cutting and casting equipment, a heated, 1,000 ton press and several autoclaves to harden carbon-fiber parts under high pressure and temperatures. Efforts focus, however, on “out of autoclave” technologies such as Resin Transfer Molding (RTM), whereby carbon-fiber structures are compressed under high pressure; or vacuum RTM, whereby resin is forced into carbon-fiber using negative pressure.

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