The addition of Axon Automotive to Bawtry Investments has technically and commercially strengthened its composite materials group, which now includes Axon’s internationally patented, multi award winning, Axontex carbon fibre structural beam technology and the Axon engineering team. The Axontex carbon fibre structural beam system combines a very lightweight design with the ability to crush progressively, absorbing very large amounts of kinetic energy, which is a key performance criterion for structural automotive parts, particularly with respect to passenger safety.
Chris Taylor, who is continuing as managing director of Axon Automotive, commented: “This is a very exciting time for the Axon Automotive team. The new owners are committed to recapitalising the business to fund further export growth and meet customer demand, not just in Europe, but also in India, China and other parts of Asia.” In the last three years, Axon Automotive has had double digit growth in export orders, with a significant increase in the proportion of overseas sales to non-EU based customers.
This highly innovative composite beam making process technology is now being used worldwide to manufacture super-lightweight carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) vehicle structural components; this includes being specified for the Hyundai Intrado hydrogen-powered concept crossover car chassis.
For automotive engineers, the Axontex CFRP beam system offers enormous design flexibility, since it is suitable for manufacturing both straight and curved structural and load bearing parts, with no size restrictions. The carbon fibre based beam system provides lightweight parts with exceptional strength and torsional stiffness, plus a high resistance to deformation and bucking. The system is ideally suited for producing a vehicle frame which needs both rigidity and high impact crash resistance performance, enabling designs which can meet desired lightweight objectives and still provide extremely high levels of passenger safety cage performance.
Safety performance has been tested and proven, with the Axontex system passing the automotive seat belt load test according to ECE regulation 14, where the belt attachment resisted up to 1,350daN ±20daN. It has also undergone specific energy absorption (SEA) crash impact load testing, where the Axontex system provided up to 1.5 times the SEA of aircraft grade aluminium.
