Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWMThe EDCar project aims to link the MaterialDigital (PMD) platform with the technological solutions of the Manufacturing X project family and other Gaia-X-based data ecosystems, with a focus on Catena-X. A key objective is to exchange structured information between partners along the supply chain in order to promote the circular economy in the automotive industry.
Automotive end-of-life data exchange for the circular economy
Ongoing research project
Project description
The “EDCar” (Automotive End-of-Life Data Exchange for Circular Economy) project is part of the MaterialDigital initiative for digitalization and sustainability in industrial materials research and data management. It aims to link the MaterialDigital (PMD) platform with the technological solutions of Gaia-X and the Manufacturing-X project family – in particular Catena-X. The goal is to enable material-focused, cross-company data exchange along the automotive supply chain with the help of sovereign and open data ecosystems. Solutions from Gaia-X-based data ecosystems, specifically Catena-X in this case, are to be applied to specific use cases requiring materials data and expanded with material ontologies. Two use cases exemplify the benefits: “Speedboats” deals with end-of-life assessment for optimizing dismantling and recycling strategies, and “Feedback to design” for developing circular vehicle components.
“EDCar” contributes to the achievement of climate targets, for example by reducing the demand for primary raw materials. At the same time, the project supports the implementation of regulatory requirements (e.g., digital product passport and EU circular economy strategy). The integration of digital data rooms also sustainably strengthens the competitiveness of the German automotive industry.
Fraunhofer IWM subproject:
Fraunhofer IWM is taking on key tasks in the EDCar project in the areas of project coordination, technical implementation, and semantic data integration. In the technical breakthrough, Fraunhofer IWM, together with Fraunhofer IPK, is responsible for developing and validating an exemplary infrastructure for material-related data exchange. This includes, in particular, the adaptation and implementation of Gaia-X and Catena-X solutions for PMD, as well as the creation of semantic descriptions in the form of ontologies, data models, and data sets that enable interoperable exchange in data ecosystems. In addition, Fraunhofer IWM is developing a central technical interface for the integration of PMD into Manufacturing-X data rooms (“PMD-X interface”).
Transfer of project results to the following Fraunhofer IWM R&D services for companies:
- Development of reference architectures for material-related data ecosystems that can also be transferred to other industries outside the automotive sector.
- Implementation of interoperable PMD-X interfaces that facilitate the connection of materials data to Catena-X.
- Development of semantic data models and ontologies for materials data that enable standardized and machine-readable exchange in data rooms.
- Creation of demonstrators for recycling optimization and “feedback to design” that can serve as a blueprint for circular product development and end-of-life strategies.
- Synchronization of data ecosystems that can be transferred to other cross-company and cross-sector cooperation projects.
