Yachts, bridges and skyscrapers have an element in common: they all have parts that consist of fibre-reinforced composite. This material is extremely versatile as it is strong, but at the same time very light. The production of carbon- and glass-fibre reinforced polymers is usually done via the so-called ‘open-mold process’, which often occurs in Asia due to cost considerations. Yet, for some customers this choice is not the most convenient one, especially when the parts to be produced are large and complex (large and complex molds are expensive) or when only a few units need to be manufactured, either for production or prototyping purposes (the cost of the mould is amortized over the few units produced). Additionally, manufacturing in Asia increases the lead time and complicates the supply chain.
What is currently missing on the market is a valid technical alternative that is also financially viable to run directly in Europe in order to combine the low costs of the Asian production with the low lead times (and possibly higher quality) of the European production.
Our CFAM (Continuous Fibre Additive Manufacturing) machine addresses exactly these market
needs. It is the largest (1.5 m × 4 m × 2 m) and fastest additive manufacturing machine worldwide that can produce objects directly with glass- and carbon-fibre reinforced composites.
The ‘CFAM’ project is aimed at bringing this technology to the market, therefore the project describes three main objectives:
Bring the CFAM machine to TRL9;
Realize the CFAM Experience Centre; and
Gain commercial traction within the Maritime and Infrastructure segments.
Upon the start of our project the maturity of the innovation was at TRL6: a small-scale prototype of the CFAM machine was already built and tested. Just after starting the project we were about to finish the first full scale prototype. This prototype would give new insights and improvement points to bring the technology past the prototyping phase into commercial readiness, TRL9.
Even more so, based on the CFAM technology different machines and components have launched in the second year of the project. Allowing to combine multiple processes and drastically reducing investment costs, these new products significantly lower the barrier for adoption on the targeted industry segments. These products are commercially available as well.
In the first year of the project the Experience centre was realized.
The CFAM Experience Centre is a centre to showcase the technology and to speed up the market acceptance by hosting demonstrations. This Centre shows CEADs products and also allows customers and other stakeholders to witness this novel technology in action. Demonstration projects done together with stakeholders allows to assess the technical and commercial feasibility of the technology for the specific application and significantly lowers the barrier for adoption. So far 31 demonstrations have been hosted in the Experience Centre.
Through these demonstration projects and other outreach projects commercial traction was gained not only in the infrastructure and maritime sectors but also in Automotive and Aerospace. Currently CEAD delivers solutions across all the different markets.
