9T Labs AG announced at CAMX 2022 its new collaboration with Purdue University to research and test the potential of manufacturing structural aerospace composite applications at scale with 9T Labs’ Additive Fusion Technology (AFT). This partnership with Purdue is a first-of-its-kind collaboration for 9T Labs in the US.

The unique hybrid solution, which combines high-resolution additive manufacturing with the speed of bulk molding compound (BMC) overmolding to automate manufacturing, offers a cost competitive option versus the traditional production of aluminum aerospace parts. 9T Labs’ approach to continuous fiber 3D-printed preform parts has already shown tremendous promise in the transportation, medical and robotics industries, among others.

Purdue University’s world-class Composite Manufacturing and Simulation Center (CMSC) in West Lafayette, Ind., provides the necessary tools and resources to analyze, simulate and test the performance of composites. 9T Labs and Purdue worked collaboratively to develop the application workflow to efficiently engineer and manufacture high-performance parts using BMC chips and continuous fiber 3D printed preforms. Initial testing shows that customized continuous fiber hybrid parts can be digitally designed, 3D printed and co-molded with BMC materials, ensuring performance at only a fraction of the usual cost of continuous fiber materials.

“Traditional composite manufacturing is expensive, wasteful and limited in its geometric freedom, particularly for small-sized applications,” said Yannick Willemin, head of marketing and business development, 9T Labs. “We are defining a new composite manufacturing standard that allows us to produce structural composite parts as easily as metal parts. Our new partnership with Purdue University is a meaningful step toward making this technology more broadly available and accessible within the next 12-18 months.”

Beyond the practical applications and potential that the AFT hybrid solution brings to multiple important industries, there are strong economic and sustainability benefits to using this technology. The combination of zero-waste approach, the possibility to recycle thermoplastics, and the positive impact on part performance being at least 50 percent lighter than the metal benchmarks makes AFT a very attractive standard of manufacturing.

9T Labs
www.9tlabs.com