The main objective of FLOWER is to develop flax fibre reinforcements produced locally and with optimised architectures for the composite sector. These innovative preforms will allow the emergence of new products for the automotive, sailing and point-of-sale advertising industries. The partnership relies and builds on complementary cross-border competences: it spans the entire value-chain, from the agricultural production of flax fibres to the R&D and commercialisation of endproducts. This will ensure the development of highperformance, light-weight, biodegradable or recyclable products with reduced environmental impacts.
The optimisation of preforms architecture and weight will allow to increase the use of flax in the composite sector. Environmental regulations and governmental strategies ensure the adoption of our products by the industry.
FLOWER will actively contribute in overcoming the common challenges of the area in terms of economic specialisation, research and environmental protection. The Composites sector in the Cross-channel area, worth about €500M, has a real competitive advantage to become the ‘gold standard’ in the development of biocomposites.
Flax fibre production which is 4 times less energy consuming than glass fibres, in addition to reduce biocomposite product mass, will allow to minimise the products environmental impacts. The products developed will exhibit positive characteristics in terms of pollution, energy efficiency and climate change.