TuFF was patented in June 2020 with 32 claims. According to the U.S. Patent Office, the claim(s) within a patent application clearly define the invention, its scope and what aspects are legally enforceable.

TuFF represents a paradigm shift in composites design and opens the door for composites to replace metals in a variety of applications in the automotive, aerospace, infrastructure, electronics industries and more. Many common products, from kitchen appliances to smartphones and more, are now made with stamped sheet metal, and manufacturers might someday use TuFF instead.

TuFF is a low cost, can be made quickly, and is recyclable. Instead of expecting the metal manufacturers to redesign metal parts like aeroplanes, we decided to create a new material that can be designed and processed like metals using their existing manufacturing equipment – while still providing 40-70% weight savings

Jack Gillespie, director of CCM

While transforming existing industries, TuFF could enable the development of new products, such as flying cars, said John Tierney, senior scientist at CCM. “For urban air mobility, you need aerospace performance at automotive rates, which is exactly what TuFF provides,” he said.

Researchers at CCM started working on TuFF in 2016 when they received a $14.9 million, three-year cooperative agreement from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for the Tailorable Feedstock and Forming (TuFF) Program. The objective of the TuFF program was to develop new composite materials with properties equivalent to previously used materials and develop a single-step manufacturing process that enables the use of the advanced materials for small parts weighing less than 20 pounds at costs competitive with aluminium. The project also included CCM faculty alumni collaborators at Clemson, Drexel and Virginia Tech universities.

About four decades ago, scientists theorised that if they could align these short carbon fibres precisely, they could make composites with desirable properties, but no one achieved this feat in practice until now. It took a few years, but after trying several different alignment mechanisms, the team at CCM figured out how to bring everything in line. The process can now use any type of fibre (or combinations) with nearly all polymers (thermoplastics and thermosets).

The Composites Centre has established a semi-automated pilot plant incorporating new control systems and inline sensors for quality control. TuFF product forms range from 20-inch wide rolls, tailored blanks for forming parts and narrow and steerable tapes for additive manufacturing processes. The team has demonstrated the feasibility and scalability of novel technologies developed through this program and are looking to supply TuFF material to designated industry partners for evaluation, prototype development and scale-up.

Researchers are now conducting additional experiments, including modelling and simulation, to further understand the behaviour of TuFF so that they can tailor it for more applications.

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The $1.8 million project sees researchers covert coal tar, a byproduct from coke production taken from the steel industry into mesophase pitch, a liquid crystal. This can then be spun and thermally converted to carbon fibre. If successful, this new carbon fibre product could increase the value of coal tar pitch by 5- to 55-times of its current value, and find application in high stiffness, low-weight composites in applications such as passenger cars and light-duty trucks.

This is an exciting project for our research team. Being able to efficiently upgrade a coal byproduct into high-value carbon fibre for composites would be a terrific benefit to Kentucky’s and the nation’s manufacturers. It would add significantly to the coal value chain, further establishing Kentucky as a global leader in carbon fibre research and development. Matt Weisenberger, Associate Director for Materials Technologies at UK CAER

The grant will support the development of simplified multifilament melt spinning of the mesophase pitch to produce ‘green’ (not yet carbonised) fibres, and subsequent continuous thermal processing, or oxidization, of those green fibres. The research team will then create woven preforms from the fibres for composites manufacture, as well as chopped carbon fibre for filled thermoplastics suitable for injection moulding.

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The new system which looks at enhancing the cost-effectiveness of manufacturing thermoplastic carbon fibre composites is based on a reactive polyamide system and compatible carbon fibres. A carbon-fibre surface or sizing specially designed for the matrix system as well as tailored thermoplastic reactive systems mean that lightweight structural components can now be manufactured quicker and easier.

The partnership between the SGL Group and BASF was launched back in October 2012. On the basis of the now-complete material research, the transfer of the special systems made from carbon fibres and matrices into specific applications of customers in the automotive industry is now under way.

SGL developed a new sizing formulation for the carbon fibres. In addition, special processes for manufacturing carbon-fibre-based textiles such as fabrics and braidings were also developed. To produce Non-Crimp-Fabrics (NCF), special threads are used that enable processing in the reactive polyamide system.

BASF’s role was to process the newly developed carbon fibres using the thermoplastic resin transfer molding technique and to characterise them comprehensively both chemically and mechanically. The BASF research team is continuing to work intensively on the development of caprolactam-based thermoplastic reactive systems.

Josef R. Wünsch, head of Structural Materials and Systems Research at BASF said;

In close collaboration with plant manufacturers as well as tiers and automotive OEMs, we are working on the development of robust polyamid 6 carbon-fibre composite systems. The mechanical characteristic values arising from the interaction of the fibre and matrix are crucial input parameters for our simulation tool Ultrasim.

Thermoplastics-based carbon-fibre composites combine the properties of carbon fibres such as high rigidity and low weight with the familiar processing advantages of thermoplastics, allowing them to be formed, recycled and welded. This helps make carbon fibre technology an even more viable proposition for large-scale production in a number of different applications.

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When combined with Arkema Luperox peroxide initiators, Elium can be moulded into complex design forms for composite parts and perfectly blends with glass or carbon fibres. As a bonus, it is also compatible with conventional thermosetting resin transformation technologies which cuts down the costs of transformers.

Unlike unsaturated polyesters, Elium resins do not contain styrene. And because of their thermoplastic properties, they can be used to design composite parts that are easily thermoformed and recyclable with comparable mechanical performance to epoxy parts.

The company claim that the Elium technology reduces the cost of long staple thermoplastic composite parts. The resins are easy to use in conventional thermoset resin processes, it transforms at room temperature and it does not contain any fabricated products like organo-sheets.

In addition to the new Elium range, Arkema is developing a polyetherketoneketone (PEKK) called Kepstan to replace metal in extreme conditions (offshore, aviation), the Rilsan range, a high-performance powdered or granulated polyamide that is 100% bio-sourced and makes thermoset composites resistant to abrasion and shock at very high or low temperatures.

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