Composite materials are important to advancements in these industries because they combine the strength of fibres with the resilience of plastics. Commonly used in the aerospace sector, composites are now becoming more widely used in areas like construction (to make whole bridges, for example) and for lighter, larger and stronger wind turbines. The projects are in collaboration with the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI) and their partner companies and universities in the US.

The projects being funded are led by innovative UK composites producers, working in partnership with universities and leading research and technology organisations such as TWI and HVM Catapult Centres such as the National Composites Centre and the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre

Simon Edmonds, Innovate UK’s, Deputy Executive Chair and Chief Business Officer

The projects are funded in the UK by the Fund for International Collaboration (FIC), which is designed to support the UK to form new and strengthen existing, bilateral partnerships for research and innovation with leading nations with a reputation for excellence. US funding has been provided by the US Department of Energy, State governments and private industry.

The seven projects, including their respective UK and USA partners, are in brief:

• CADFEC: Fibre Engineered Composites, for car components: Aston Martin and Expert Tooling and Automation, based in Coventry. U.S. partners include DowAksa, Dow Chemical, and Purdue University
• TACOMA: X-ray scanning for high-speed inspection of Automotive composite parts: TWI, Cambridge. U.S. partners include American Chemistry Council and Michigan State University
• HIPPAC: Advanced composites for stronger, lighter wind-turbine blades: Fibreforce Composites, Runcorn; Brunel University. U.S. partners include National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, GE Energy, and Montefibre
• FibreSteer: Fibre shaping for stronger aerospace components: iComat (a University of Bristol spin-out company), National Composites Centre (part of HVM Catapult) and Airbus. U.S. partners include Airbus Americas and University of Dayton Research Institute
• FibreLoop: Re-cycling carbon fibre production waste into new high-value components: NetComposites, Chesterfield; Far-UK, Nottingham and the Advanced Materials Research Centre (part of HVM Catapult). U.S. partners include Vartega, BASF, Michelman, and Michigan State University
• ENACT: Polymer layering for ‘overmoulding’, allowing more sophisticated design for complex parts: Surface Generation, Rutland, and Nottingham University. U.S. partner is Michigan State University
• TexTape: Trying to substantially reduce the costs of carbon fibre thermoplastics: Composites Evolution, Chesterfield, and National Composites. US partner is Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

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The partnership will see ORNL scientists and several faculty members within the Tickle College of Engineering at UT develop lighter vehicle components made from composite materials and to electrify vehicles.

This hub, along with other research institutions here, is an integral part of Volkswagen’s global research and development efforts and can also directly contribute to vehicles in North America

Wolfgang Demmelbauer-Ebner, executive vice president and chief engineering officer for Volkswagen’s North American

The work is being led by UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Uday Vaidya. His team in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering are focusing on several research and development activities to support prototyping, develop a sheet moulding compound, and evaluate materials and their properties for use in Volkswagen vehicle components.

Researchers from the Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science are focusing on research that has been pioneered by their counterparts at ORNL—the wireless charging of parked electric vehicles as well as dynamic charging, in which roadways are embedded with a system that charges electric vehicles as they move. A second project involves packaging wide bandgap power electronics in order to increase power density and efficiency hopefully reducing battery size and vehicle weight.

From the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Peebles Professor Dayakar Penumadu is providing his expertise in materials characterisation for lightweight composites.

The partnership between UT, ORNL, and Volkswagen strengthens Tennessee’s position as a significant source of innovation and talent for the Volkswagen North American manufacturing base, especially at the flagship Chattanooga facility

UT System Interim President Randy Boyd

Volkswagen is also a member of the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI), which is supported by the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office. A team of IACMI undergraduate and graduate students and researchers led by Vaidya created a novel composite liftgate for the Volkswagen Atlas that reduces weight by 35 per cent, with lower investment costs and an improved environmental footprint compared to a conventional part. Researchers from ORNL, Purdue University, and Michigan State University were integral collaborators on the effort.

The new innovation hub in Knoxville will join Volkswagen’s larger global innovation ecosystem. This includes innovation centres in Belmont, USA; Wolfsburg, Germany; and Beijing, China, along with innovation hubs in Barcelona, Spain; Tel Aviv, Israel; and Tokyo, Japan.

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Multiple factors, including cost and design constraints, present barriers to the adoption of composites in high volume automotive applications. The new IACMI project will address both of these critical areas through a fundamentally different approach to the manufacturing of carbon fibre composites versus those currently in use today.

Flexible coated tow manufactured by Fibrtec will be formed into flexible fabric prepregs using a Rapid Fabric Formation (RFF) technology along with a proprietary polyamide resin both by DuPont. The final component will benefit from increased production speeds of the tow manufacturing process and the fabric forming process resulting in a lower cost of manufacture.

Composite parts made by this process have been shown to have low voids and good mechanical properties when consolidated by traditional techniques. The flexible fabric prepregs have also been shown to have good draping behaviour in moulding experiments. Researchers in the Purdue University Composites Manufacturing and Simulation Centre will work with the team to model and validate drapability and part performance.

By leveraging the strengths of all project partners, we have the potential to create a unique commercially viable path to high volume, low-cost thermoplastic composite automotive components.

High cycle time for production of continuous carbon fibre thermoplastic composites increases costs. The use of emerging materials for impregnation and new approaches for tow coating and fabric formation are expected to significantly lower production costs of high volume composites.

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