Hutchinson

Hutchinson, member of TOTAL Group, is a global leader in vibration control, fluid management and sealing technologies. The company makes its multiple areas of expertise available in multiple markets, delivering synergies and value-added. The 38,000 employees in 24 countries share a common objective with the customers: facilitating mobility across an array of markets, spanning cars and trucks, aerospace, defense, energy, rail and industry.

Able to respond to the technical constraints of highly demanding markets, Hutchinson’s teams work closely with each customer to deliver customized solutions.

Spending about 5% of sales in R&D, the corporate Hutchinson’s Research and Innovation Center, based in Montargis (France), leads to develop innovative solutions, using new chemistry of tailored polymers materials.

New fields of competence are emerging coming from functionalized materials for thermal insulation, thermal energy storage and electric heating (electric resistance & PTC effect). This allows addressing new functions as thermal management subsystems of battery pack, vehicle passenger compartment for thermal optimization of systems and comfort.

The Hutchinson’s Research and Innovation Center is regularly involved since several years in national and international collaborative research programs. Currently Hutchinson is working on 30 research programs involving academic and industrial partners, in all common and new fields of competence.

Main tasks in the project:

Hutchinson will develop:

– advanced new materials and integration technologies for thermal insulation of the passenger compartment providing enhanced flexibility in the design. A multi-layer combination of super thermal insulating materials coupled with Phase Change Materials will be specially investigated in such way the acoustic performance and thermal comfort should be optimized for a lower energy consumption.

– high energy density thermal storage subsystem based on the latent heat accumulation of Phase Changing Materials (PCM), that allow storing energy from both preconditioning phases (when the vehicle is plugged to the power grid) and remaining heat fluxes that would otherwise be lost, in order to be later used for heating or cooling purposes under demand of the comfort management software.

Website:
www.hutchinson.com