The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to explore the opportunities of using a new technology to help manufacturers make carbon fiber composite products with higher production speed and lower cost. This novel fabrication technology produces materials that are stronger, stiffer, thinner, lighter, and better conductors of heat and electricity than current carbon fiber composites widely used in manufacturing industries. Parts produced from these new materials are more accurately made and have less internal stress remaining after manufacturing than previously. In addition, this technology will also reduce the energy consumption and material waste during the operation of vehicles and equipment that utilize them. Since carbon fiber composites are being increasingly used in many industries including aerospace, automotive, energy, marine, sporting goods, and defense, successful commercialization of the new technology catalyzed by this I-Corps project will bring significant benefits to the U.S. manufacturing base.
This I-Corps project is based on a new technology using long ultra-thin carbon nanofibers to thread through a bed of conventional thicker carbon fibers all surrounded by an epoxy resin adhesive. As a result, the thicker fibers are strongly bound together by the nanofibers, and all are held in place by the epoxy, to produce a composite material that is much stronger than either the epoxy resin alone or the conventional carbon fiber composite including the epoxy. This is called "z-threading". The network of interlocked carbon nanofibers and carbon fibers significantly improves the composite material's strength and conduction of heat and electricity. Conventional carbon fiber composite materials, typically in the form of a laminate, lack the z-threading nanofibers and have significantly poorer properties across the thickness direction of the laminate. As a result, manufacturing processes currently using carbon fiber composites will be significantly improved. This will allow production of more aggressively designed components with higher performance than has been possible before.
