Deutschland-Nederland FairingFlex

Two applications are being worked on in the Fairing Flex project: 1.) Development of an individual prototype for partially self-supporting fairings for velomobiles and special bicycles and 2.) Development of individual, load-bearing food transport boxes for cargo bikes. The focus here is on the production of the prototypes using the fleximould process developed in the Smart Production project (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rseRytONJzE).
The shape of the transport boxes of Cargobikes and the cladding of Velomobiles have to be constructed mainly individually depending on the application requirements. In addition, maintaining the temperature through insulation plays an important role in refrigerated as well as hot food transport.
Bicycles (with and without electric drive) are a less polluting alternative to motorised transport. For weather-independent mobility over longer distances, recumbent tricycles with an enclosed fairing (so-called velomobiles) have been developed, and cargo bicycles have been developed for transporting loads over short distances. The tour patterns and distances covered vary according to the market segment served (“Untersuchung des Einsatzes von Fahrrädern im Wirtschaftsverkehr” (WIV-RAD), J. Gruber, C. Rudolph, 2016). Lightweight construction plays a special role here, as a low weight of the fairing or load container requires less (electrical) energy when using the bicycle.