Proposal-Ready Eureka Lightweighting Consortium Seeking OEM Partner for Circular Sheet-Metal Reuse Demonstrator

We are planning a Eureka Lightweighting 2026 proposal with a pre-built consortium core consisting of Ermetal from Türkiye, a Turkish university, and a French SME technology partner, with a ready base-proposal.

The project focuses on AI-guided robotic reuse of automotive sheet-metal offcuts for circular lightweighting applications. The concept includes offcut recognition, robotic sorting, layout optimisation, fixture-based assembly, and laser welding to transform selected stamping offcuts into reusable semi-finished sheet structures or TWB-like panels.

We are seeking an OEM partner outside Türkiye to act as the industrial requirements owner and value-chain validator to show relevancy on actual vehicles and stamping operations altogether.

The expected OEM contribution is to provide an anonymised automotive sheet-metal benchmark involving multi-steel and/or TWB applications, such as a B-pillar reinforcement, rocker reinforcement, floor crossmember, door-ring segment, or equivalent BIW/TWB structure. The input may include simplified geometry, material and thickness zones, joining constraints, inspection expectations, traceability needs, forming limitations, and validation targets. The benchmark must involve the use of multiple steel grades, multiple thicknesses, tailored welded blanks, patchwork blanks, or equivalent multi-material steel sheet configurations, so that the demonstrator can be assessed against realistic lightweight automotive requirements.

The goal is to assess where such a circular sheet-metal reuse system could realistically fit into the automotive value chain, including stamping-shop offcut reuse, supplier-side TWB preparation, prototype or low-volume parts, internal circularity loops, or future lightweight manufacturing scenarios.