SBIR Phase I: Tailored Carbon Fiber Technology for High Volume Industrial Applications

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is technology that encompasses the development of customizable carbon fiber products and package formats at a low cost. Lack of suitable raw materials and corresponding processes has largely stymied the development and manufacturing of many high-volume industrial composite applications. The current advanced material reinforcement knowledge base is built on technology developed to serve space/aerospace composite material applications, which are relatively low-volume and cost-insensitive markets. This project focuses on creating a new platform designed specifically for high-volume, cost-sensitive industrial composite applications. The resulting carbon fiber products from this advanced material delivery platform can be tailored to facilitate a broad range of industrial composite applications currently unmet or underserved, such as automotive, wind energy and infrastructure applications. This will potentially enable sizable performance and efficiency gains in those industries.This SBIR Phase I project proposes to demonstrate proof-of-concept for a new carbon fiber format technology platform. The proposed technology platform entails delivering carbon fiber with customizable tow linear densities produced from a universal conversion feedstock while seeking to maintain requisite and optimal physical properties of the carbon fiber. Physical properties of multi-level samples will be analyzed iteratively to determine acceptable linear density boundaries. Prototype mechanical devices will be developed to explore multiple viable approaches to optimize processes for the target product formats. The project also will determine the material handling viability of the resulting products for downstream composite uses. The project will explore the trade space of carbon fiber production economics, application requirements, and product performance.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.