22 July 2021
For those who are unfamiliar with it, Dallara is a prestigious Italian racing cars and supercars manufacturer founded by the current President Gian Paolo Dallara.
Today Dallara is recognized worldwide as one of the most important companies specialized in the design, development and production of racing cars. It is the sole supplier of cars to the IndyCar, IndyLights, GP2, GP3, Formula V8 3.5 and Super Formula championships, as well as being a strategic partner of important brands such as Alfa Romeo, Audi, Bugatti, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati to name a few.
In this video extracted from the documentary “Lords of Carbon”, Andrea Pontremoli, CEO of Dallara Automobili since 2007, describes the company’s experience in carbon fibers milling process, thanks to the use of Belotti MDL 5-axis CNC machining center.
One of the Dallara Stradale design goals was to obtain a road car that had the same performance of a racing car.
PTo reach this ambitious goal, it has been necessary to identify technologically advanced machinery that would have allowed to process carbon fiber complex shapes, such as the monocoque, which is the heart of the car.
The machinery should have been able – and Belotti MDL Series was the choice – to best support 3 main needs:
- Safety: carbon fiber suction and management systems are important elements when processing this material;
- Accuracy: the tolerances required by this type of machining are minimal;
- Versatility: the ability to change tools in a very simple and rapid way is a key feature in order to reduce the machine-cycle time.
By choosing Belotti MDL machining center Dallara has managed to reduce the processing times by about 40%. It takes a few weeks to make a monocoque for a racing car, just to give a figure.
In addition, the processes performed while milling must perfectly fit together with the subsequent processes, and in particular with thegluing process.
In composite materials, the union of different components takes place exclusively by gluing: it is therefore clear how fundamental the extreme precision of each component becomes in order to find the right joints.