9T Labs, Purdue University to advance composites use in structural aerospace applications

A 3D-printed composite overhead compartment pin bracket. Photo Credit: 9T Labs AG

9T Labs AG (Zürich, Switzerland), experts in digital, automated and cost-competitive serial production of continuous fiber components, has announced the company’s new collaboration with Purdue University (West Lafayette, Ind., U.S.) 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 reported to be a first-of-its-kind collaboration for 9T Labs in the U.S. The hybrid solution, which combines high-resolution additive manufacturing (AM) 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, according to the company. 9T Labs’ approach to continuous fiber 3D-printed preform parts has shown potential in the transportation, medical and robotics industries, among others.

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Purdue University’s Composite Manufacturing and Simulation Center (CMSC) 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.

“This new partnership with Purdue is an additional step toward building a consortium of partners from academia and industry to penetrate the market.”

“Traditional composites manufacturing is expensive, wasteful and limited in its geometric freedom, particularly for small-sized applications,” Yannick Willemin, head of marketing and business development, 9T Labs, says. “We are defining a new composites 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.”

The origins of this partnership trace back to when 9T Labs’ CEO and co-founder, Martin Eichenhofer, learned of Dr. R. Byron Pipes, a John L. Bray distinguished professor of engineering, and his work on composites during his PhD studies. “When I heard about the new Composite Manufacturing and Simulation Center led by Dr. Byron Pipes, I reached out to him to discuss what we were doing at 9T Labs,” Eichenhofer explains. “His curiosity was piqued and we discovered an opportunity to work together on advanced thermoplastic composites. It is an honor to work with such a distinguished person and such a great team in the composites field.”

According to Dr. Pipes, Purdue has “chosen to collaborate with 9T Labs because we believe that their development of AFT and their novel hybrid approach is the future of the composites manufacturing industry.”

Beyond the practical applications and potential that the AFT hybrid solution brings to multiple industries, 9T Labs says 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% lighter than the metal benchmarks makes AFT an attractive standard of manufacturing. AFT also enhances the strength performance of molded components without compromising manufacturing rates.

“9T Labs is at the forefront of a new field of composites manufacturing that has real-world implications for structural and processing simulation, material compositions and characterization, experimental testing and application engineering,” Eichenhofer adds. “This new partnership with Purdue is an additional step toward building a consortium of partners from academia and industry to penetrate the market and accelerate the adoption of AFT and composite materials for a broad application field.”

Learn more about the company’s technologies, recent collaborations and more at the 9T Labs CAMX booth.