Carbon fiber is lighter and more durable than steel, but it costs more than a pretty penny – I’m talking upwards of USD$16/lb.
In a previous article, we looked at whether or not carbon fiber could replace steel in the automotive industry. To summarize, we looked at findings presented by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) showing that carbon fiber could only find parity with steel if its material costs were to fall to $5/lb; nearly a 70 percent drop.
At the time of the article linked above, the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI) had announced upcoming projects aimed at decreasing the cost of the materials in question for automotive structural parts by 15 percent for target components.
In recent news, the IACMI has launched their first project in line with that goal.
Working with DuPont Performance Materials, Fibrtec Inc. and Purdue University, the IACMI will focus on decreasing the cost of manufacturing and increasing design flexibility for automotive composites. The IACMI’s partners will contribute their own proprietary technologies toward investigating ways to re-engineer carbon fiber composites.
“By partnering with industry to solve manufacturing challenges, we’re advancing clean energy innovations that will help propel United States manufacturing and competitiveness,” said Craig Blue, IACMI CEO.
Flexible coated tow manufactured by Fibrtec will be formed into flexible fabric prepregs using a Rapid Fabric Formation (RFF) technology with a proprietary polyamide resin, both developed by DuPont.
The final component will benefit from increased production speeds of the tow manufacturing process and the fabric forming process, resulting in lower manufacturing costs.
THE IACMI states composite parts made using this process have already shown low voids and good mechanical properties when consolidated by traditional techniques. The flexible fabric prepregs have also been shown to have good draping behavior in molding experiments.
Researchers in the Purdue University Composites Manufacturing and Simulation Center will 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,” said Jan Sawgle, DuPont project manager.
For more information about the IACMI and their projects, visit iacmi.org. For background on the topic, continue reading with us here.