KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — April 11, 2023 — The Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation® (IACMI), headquartered in Knoxville, Tenn., announced today it is receiving a funding renewal from the Department of Energy (DOE). IACMI becomes the first clean energy institute to be renewed by DOE. IACMI will be receiving federal funding across five fiscal years, with a first-year investment of $6 million to further technological R&D and accelerate commercialization in the domestic composites manufacturing sector. This federal funding builds upon initial institute funding of $70 million from DOE and over $130 million from IACMI’s member partners.
“IACMI is living, breathing proof that when we connect our nation’s leading experts across the manufacturing value chain to listen, learn, and share ideas and best practices, we can have a big impact,” said DOE’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Alejandro Moreno. “The Department is committed to seeing how IACMI will continue to leverage that collaborative spirit into actionable and innovative progress as our partnership continues.”
Since its establishment in 2015, IACMI has emerged as a leader in advanced composite design, manufacturing, technical innovation, and workforce development. During this eight-year period, IACMI has:
- Managed more than 60 collaborative and industry-led technical projects, representing more than $200 million in R&D investment
- Catalyzed over 25 new composite-based products to commercialization
- Supported the creation of 3,000 jobs at composite materials and parts manufacturers
- Spurred investment of $75 million in five states for R&D and Scale Up Facilities
IACMI首席执行官Chad Duty说：“复合材料有权改善日常生活。”“随着我们为国家的能源，运输和基础设施挑战开发更可持续的解决方案，复合技术将继续发挥关键作用。DOE对IACMI的持续投资将加速我们实现这些目标的进步。”
The funding will be applied to the continued research and development of advanced composites technologies that support U.S. decarbonization and strengthen IACMI’s three strategic pillars: technology, economy, and workforce development.
Since 2015, IACMI, state economic development organizations, and DOE have invested in a shared infrastructure that collectively delivers a breadth and scale of open-access composites manufacturing R&D capabilities that stand unmatched in the U.S. These facility and infrastructure investments have been led by IACMI’s core innovation partners in Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. Today, these capabilities uniquely position IACMI, along with DOE and its industrial collaborators, to leverage their achievements thus far to advance composites manufacturing innovations that will de-risk and accelerate decarbonization efforts in the United States.
Examples of state-of-the-art scale-up facilities include:
- Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
- Carbon Fiber Technology Facility at ORNL
- Fibers and Composites Manufacturing Facility at University of Tennessee, Knoxville
- Laboratory for Systems Integrity and Reliability at Vanderbilt University
- The Composites Laboratory at the University of Dayton Research Institute
- 普渡大学的复合材料制造与仿真中心
- The IACMI Scale-Up Research Facility (SuRF), managed by Michigan State University
- The Composites Manufacturing Education and Technology Facility (CoMET) at National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
IACMI has leveraged these facilities to undertake transformational R&D, such as helping Volkswagen of America redesign and validate a liftgate for the VW Atlas with composites, reducing its weight by 35 percent and lowering its cost by 9 percent compared with steel. Another example is the scaling, manufacture and testing of novel thermoplastic wind turbine blades that are recyclable and lower in cost.
如今，IACMI工作组提供了一个强大的模型，可以通过回收和新颖的材料进行研发，用于高速航空结构制造，数字双胞胎，未来的机动性，风能，基础设施和构建以及循环经济。
IACMI是为催化高级制造和材料应用而建立的16家国家制造业机构之一，也是第一个从DOE获得第二轮资金的公司之一。先进的复合材料已经在汽车，航空航天，基础设施和可再生能源领域表现出巨大的希望，并已被拜登科学与技术顾问委员会确定为前三名战略制造材料之一。复合材料耐用，比混凝土更强，轻巧，耐腐蚀，耐温度，并且具有相对较低的生命周期碳足迹。在该研究所的下一章中，IACMI将通过吸引大型企业，国家实验室和大学的机会来进一步召集，连接和催化复合材料社区。
Posted: April 11, 2023
资料来源：复合材料学院
