Coming Soon! University of Tennessee College of Engineering’s Fibers and Composites Manufacturing Facility

utk engineeringThe University of Tennessee, Knoxville will unveil the College of Engineering’s Fibers and Composites Manufacturing Facility August 22, 2016.

The Fibers and Composites Manufacturing Facility (FCMF) at UT will serve as a state of the art facility for advanced fibers, plastics and composites manufacturing for IACMI and related efforts. The 8000 square facility at UT provides opportunities for training and education of next generation engineers, industry collaborations and cross-cutting projects. Working in conjunction with UT-partnered NNMIs (IACMI—The Composites Institute, AFFOA—The Fibers Institute, and the Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute) FCMF will help to advance hybrid
materials manufacturing.

The facility also provides experiential learning for next generation engineers, both undergraduate and graduate students, in a real-world manufacturing setting.

The FCMF features capabilities for the design, manufacturing, modeling and characterization of continuous and discontinuous fiber composites in thermoplastic and thermoset resins, including carbon, glass, biocomposites and hybrid materials. The facility will be equipped with the following:

  • Long fiber extrusion compression molding (B30 Impco, Hennifin press)
  • 350 ton injection molding  (Nanrong)
  • Gala Pelletizing line with Berstoff twin screw to produce pellets, tapes and rods
  • Engel roll former for thermoplastics processing
  • Mechanical shredder, Pellet and Hammer mill and Pyrolysis for recycling of soft materials (Jordan Reduction)
  • Vacuum diaphragm forming with Infrared Heating (Schultz forming)
  • Vaccum assisted resin transfer molding
  • Low pressure resin transfer molding (MVP)
  • Plate winding for production of continuous fiber composites
  • Compression molding of discontinuous and continuous fiber composites
  • Izod impact tester, Gas gun for low and high speed impact testing (Tinius Olsen)
  • Sheet molding compound (SMC) line
  • B24 Impco plastics blow molding
  • Melt blown spinning of nonwoven fibers (Davis Standard)
  • Wet laid processing of thermoplastics (Thwing Albert)
  • Rotary kiln furnace for lignin processing (Harper)
  • Range of fiber characterization tools and ASTM/ISO/DIN mechanical testing
  • Range of tooling for compression and injection molding
  • Process modeling, CAD and FEA lab

The August 22nd event will also feature demos for various equipment, including production of composite skateboard in collaboration with MVP, Techmer and TruDesign.