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

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力将是通过量身定制的高性能低成本碳纤维(HP-LCCF)产品来满足汽车应用的定制需求，这些产品目前还没有商业化。HP-LCCF技术的更广泛影响是使氢燃料电池汽车技术能够帮助缓解化石燃料汽车造成的与气候变化相关的排放。预计惠普-LCCF在这一应用中的销量在十年内将大幅增长。在成功进入汽车市场后，重点将扩大到满足风能市场的需求，并推出定制的HP-LCCF产品，使更长的叶片能够用于更大和更高效的风力涡轮机。这项技术将有助于推动全球采用清洁的可再生能源。小企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段项目开发了一种工艺，使用机电劈裂工艺对重型丝束碳纤维进行细分，该工艺可以保持常规丝束碳纤维线密度的可接受范围。随后的量身定制试验将验证实现和保持汽车行业合作伙伴提供的线密度目标的能力，这些合作伙伴将反过来执行下游可制造性试验。对重型丝束进行细分，使其能够无缝地进入客户的下游复合材料制造工艺，而不存在固有的、可能致命的重型丝束缺陷。这类缺陷通常是由横跨丝束带的横向悬链力引起的带内不均匀张力。实现高带线密度和可变带内张力是重丝束高性能、低成本碳纤维(HP-LCCF)商业化的重要障碍。这里开发的过程可能会消除这些问题，并实现与商业相关的HP-LCCF。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.