A Birmingham-based stamping specialist is pressing the button on a £1-million project to develop a new process to support the UK’s acceleration into the EV market.

Brandauer has secured over £300,000 of funding from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund to help it set up a high-volume electric motor stack line to produce the thin laminates required by the automotive and aerospace sectors.

The manufacturer believes there is a £500,000 opportunity it can secure once the methodology is in place, and predicts that the market will be worth up to £70 million in the long term.

Engineers and academic experts will first create an in-line adhesive dispensing process to support the volume challenge, then work toward the integration of an advanced stamping line capable of creating 0.1 mm laminations with very narrow iron bridges.

“Our laminations business is growing, and is initially focused on aerospace and defense work,” explained Quality Engineer Adam Burgoyne. “However, the really big opportunity is in electrification and, to put us in that global arena, we need to be able to stamp extremely thin laminations to a high quality and large volume.”

Brandauer will start by developing its own in-house methodology, transferring expertise from applying lubricant surface coatings to stampings during manufacturing. The company expects this to reduce cycle times and improve productivity,  allowing it to grow its capacity by 50%.

The second stage will use the existing design of a rotor/stator stack with 0.2 mm laminations as a base, before changing the material thickness to the required 0.1 mm. As part of the process of proving the feasibility of stamping and preparing for manufacture, the company will conduct narrow bridge trials to identify the exact production process and manufacturing techniques required.

Source: Brandauer