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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Through a patented process, SurFlow transmits data in the form of electromagnetic waves that travel through composite parts. The system uses no wires or fibre optics and, unlike wireless data transfer, cannot be intercepted remotely.

By turning a composite part into a ‘smart’ composite, the technology integrates a data network into a component’s physical structure. The system is capable of transmitting data at up to 6Gbps and can continue to function even if the composite part suffers damage.

Potential applications for smart composites exist throughout industry. In the automotive sector, where use of composites such as carbon fibre is now extending beyond high-end applications, the technology could significantly reduce the complexity of a vehicle’s internal communications network.

In robotics, the technology could be used to enable communication throughout a robotic system without the use of wires. And in consumer electronics, the technology would allow a device to instantly connect to a network simply by making contact with the composite’s surface, with no need to plug anything in or detect and connect to a wireless network.

SurFlow works using surface waves: electromagnetic energy that travels along a material. By incorporating a substrate made up of dielectric and conductive materials, these surface waves can be transmitted through composite structures. The waves are propagated and received using transducers which can be placed anywhere along the smart composite.

Further testing is underway to investigate the innovation’s potential. Other uses being explored include advanced aerospace applications and real-time composite monitoring, whereby subtle changes in the waveform allow any damage to a smart composite component to be identified immediately.

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The work has been supported by MU-Tool, a European-funded project to develop an alternative method of microwave processing composites to enable low cost and rapid manufacture.

Efficient and sustainable uses of resources continually drive the development of new lightweight solutions in nearly all markets, especially in the transportation industry. Materials such as commodity metal alloys are being replaced by polymer composites which add value to their greater functional properties and efficient manufacturing processes. Development work at TWI’s Cambridge laboratories has identified high-frequency technology as offering unique advantages in product quality, productivity and automation, energy efficiency and price leverage, compared with thermal processing that will increase the industrial volume production of advanced composites. These composite materials offer a high, lightweight exploitation potential as well as efficient recycling potential of the valuable components.

Hephaistos technology, invented by Lambert Feher, has been used for curing composite products at TWI since 2009. The Hephaistos microwave oven’s unique interior geometry, together with its waveguides, allows fast and even heating of the part to be cured, and demonstrates that microwave field patterns are more even at small dimensions. In comparison with alternative methods, Hephaistos makes it possible to process higher-quality cured composite components and, at the same time, to increase productivity with optimised energy efficiency.

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