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

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR ) Phase II project will be to address the customized needs of automotive applications with tailored high performance-low cost carbon fiber (HP-LCCF) products that are not currently commercially available. The broader impact of HP-LCCF technology is to enable hydrogen fuel cell vehicle technologies to help mitigate the climate change linked emissions caused by fossil fuel powered vehicles. Volume projections of HP-LCCF for this application are expected to ramp up significantly over the ten years. After successful entry into the automotive market, the focus will be expanded to address needs in the wind energy market and with a tailored HP-LCCF product to enable longer blades for larger and more efficient wind turbines. This technology will help spur global adoption of clean, renewable energy sources.The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project develops a process where heavy tow carbon fiber is subdivided using an electromechanical splitting process that can maintain an acceptable range of regular tow carbon fiber linear densities. Subsequent tailoring trials will verify the capability to achieve and maintain the linear density targets provided by the automotive industry partners who will, in turn, perform downstream manufacturability trials. Subdividing the heavy tows enables a seamless commercial entry into customers' downstream composite manufacturing processes without an inherent, potentially fatal heavy tow defect. Such defects are typically non-uniform intra-band tension caused by the transverse catenary forces across the tow band. Achieving high band linear density and variable intra-band tension are significant barriers for the commercial adoption of heavy tow high performance, low cost carbon fibers (HP-LCCF). The process developed here may eliminate such issues and achieve commercially relevant HP-LCCF.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.