1. What's covered in your patent?

The Umbrella patent covers the entire Fiberforge manufacturing process--namely 2D tailored blanks, their consolidation, their final forming into 3D parts, and trimming. It covers multiple lay-up heads with relative motion either via a moving table or conveyor system.

2. How much scrap can you save??

The answer to this question is highly application dependant--for a large rectangular part we can save very little on scrap but for a non-rectangular part we can save more and for one with a large hole in it we can achieve significant savings. It is not uncommon for a current application to have around 25% scrap and for us to be able to reduce this scrap to around 12%.

3. How else can you save materials?

By optimizing fiber orientation and variable part thickness the Fiberforge system can reduce the material required for many application shapes and loadings.

4. How do you define "advanced composites?"

Advanced composites use high strength and stiffness fibers such as carbon and Kevlar. These fibers are long (usually continuous), carefully aligned, make up around half of the part weight, and are held together in a matrix of either thermoplastic or thermoset resin. SMC, LFT, BMC, their variants and any composite that uses chopped and or random fibers are NOT advanced composites.

5. Why advanced composites?

They represent the most logical alternative to steel and light metals for high volume manufactured structures. By taking advantage of advanced composites engineers can design parts that weigh half as much as they would in steel. While light metals, such as aluminum, offer weight savings, factors such as stiffness, corrosion resistance, and parts consolidation make advanced composites a better alternative to the incumbent in the industry, steel.

6. Why have you chosen thermoplastics as your primary resin of choice?

Thermoplastics are often superior in their toughness and cost. They can be recycled more readily. Because they are processed thermally rather than chemically they can have multiple and discrete processing steps.

7. What is the volume your process is targeting?

The Fiberforge process was developed to tackle volumes higher than are possible with competing hand-made and automated processes. Typical applications are in the thousands per year. The process is scalable so volumes exceeding one hundred thousand per year will be possible in the near future.

8. Are you set up for high volume manufacturing?

Fiberforge has a 15,000 kg tailored blank capacity today and expects to add to this capacity over time either in-house or through manufacturing partnerships as the market need arises. Fiberforge can mold tailored blanks into finished parts in-house but is not set up for high volume manufacturing of this kind. Fiberforge's molding capacity is intended to support customer application development and short run needs.

9. What parts can you make?

Currently in the Company’s pilot operations we are able to produce parts that are smaller than 1 meter by 1 meter. However the capability of the manufacturing cell is being upgraded on an almost daily basis. Complex shapes, inserts, cores, hybrids, post processing/molding, etc. do not require fundamental R&D and could all be integrated as part of an application development program.

10. Can you just replace metal parts with advanced composites?

No, not in structural applications. Metals and composites are vastly different materials. Both deliver benefits and design constraints to engineers who design with them. One challenge that anyone who wants to apply composites in an application faces is that parts need to be designed from scratch. In fact, to get the greatest benefit from composites the whole system needs to be designed using a “composites architecture” as opposed to a “steel architecture.” This is not to say that a system that is mostly steel cannot benefit from replacing some of its steel parts with composite parts but that the steel architecture places steel design constraints on the composite parts thus limiting the potential benefits. It is critical that these replacement composite parts be designed specifically for the application (some of the steel parts around them may even have to be modified) and cannot just be the same part just made with another material.

11. What fibers do you commonly use?

Carbon fiber is by far the most common fiber we are requested to work with. However we can and do also use other technical fibers such as aramid (Kevlar) and glass. Often after evaluation, applications that can use glass are deemed not "structural enough" (and therefor not valuable enough) to justify the added value of continuous and tailored alignment/orientation of the fibers that is inherent in Fiberforge parts.

12. What thermoplastics do you commonly use?

Nylons (PA), PBT, and PC are make a good performance match with carbon fiber. Lower performing resins such as PP are a better match for glass fiber.

13. Can you work with higher temperature thermoplastics?

We are looking into higher temperatures with a few prospects; however, the first product will be made with Nylon/Carbon tailored blanks.

14. Can you work with thermoset systems?

We have identified modifications to our system that could make it compatible with theremosets. With justification and customer support we could develop and make these modifications.

15. What's your advantage over your competition?

• Immediate savings of materials via scrap reduction and increased part performance via tailored fiber alignment.
• Highly automated lay-up via RELAY™ system and potential for vertical integration (patent & TS protected) enables higher margins.