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| FY 1994 NIST Funding: $25 million | |
|---|---|
| Total FY 1994-98 NIST Funding: $160 million | |
| Potential for U.S. Economic Benefit |
Doing more with less is a formula for good business. It also expresses
the promise of composite materials whose engineering performance
can exceed that of traditional materials while reducing the weight,
maintenance expenses, and operating costs of cars, planes, missiles,
spacecraft, bridges, offshore oil rigs, and other structures. So
far, however, the driving force to develop advanced composites which
typically combine the lightness of a polymer with the stiffness
and strength of glass or ceramic reinforcing fibers has been the
additional performance that the materials allow and not their cost
of manufacture.
A new five-year program in Manufacturing Composite Structures aims to help U.S. companies develop the technical capability for producing vast amounts of affordable high-performance composites for large-scale commercial applications. With that capability in place after five years, new annual markets in the range of tens of billions of dollars could begin opening to U.S. companies, according to industry projections. For example, a team of companies projects that 184 million pounds (83 million kilograms) of composites could be introduced in deep-sea drilling platforms totaling $2.9 billion over the next 10 years. If composites captured even 5 percent of the $130 billion needed to bring 230,000 of the nation's bridges up to structural and functional snuff, the market would total over $6 billion. Auto manufacturers estimate that composites orders in the $20 billion range are possible, in this case for building lighter weight vehicles that consume less fuel. The program's budget will begin with $25 million in FY 1994 with a total of $160 million during the program's five years. |
| Technology Challenge |
Methods of manufacturing composites now are too labor intensive
or too product specific to work smoothly in larger volume commercial
settings such as auto manufacturing and bridge building. The new
five-year ATP program proposes to turn
the table on that situation. By the end of the program, participants
should be able to demonstrate cost-effective manufacturing processes
for making large composite structures for several classes of applications
and be in a position to develop and adapt those processes for commercial-scale
production.
Among the major technical goals is the automation of processes for creating complicated three-dimensional arrangements and weaves of the reinforcing fibers. Another goal is to integrate design and simulation tools for predicting the properties and reliability of the composites during their service lifetimes. Also, the program agenda emphasizes development of sensor systems, some built directly into the composite structures where they will monitor the health of the composites throughout their manufacturing phases and lifetimes. These can help certify the materials reliability for engineers and builders who are more familiar and comfortable with traditional materials. These and other advances also should lower the cost of designing with composites since fewer prototypes will have to be built and tested. |
| Industry Commitment | A broad cross section of materials suppliers, component manufacturers, and end users who would design lighter and more efficient cars and buses, more capable and durable bridges, and cheaper oil-drilling platforms that could open less accessible oil sources under deeper waters have helped articulate the new ATP program and have expressed willingness to share its cost. All of the goals and benchmarks for this program were derived from industry-produced white papers and meetings with representatives from the composites R&D community. |
| Significance of ATP Funds | The ATP focused program is the means to trigger expansion of advanced composites beyond military applications and small commercial niches, such as sports equipment, into much larger commercial markets. In FY 1994, $207 million of composites research will be funded from nine different federal sources, but only a small portion is for technology development aimed at commercial markets. Most federal support, which accounts for more than half of all R&D in advanced polymer matrix composites, focuses on aerospace and military structures. That, together with the inherent risk of developing new materials in markets where traditional materials have been used for decades, has kept private investment in non-military applications to a trickle. Moreover, efforts to build new markets for composites have been checked by industrial downsizing and rollbacks in research that would yield important information about the composites performance encouraging them to select traditional materials over new ones. The ATP effort will enable U.S. industry to develop advanced composites whose technological advantages have been demonstrated well in military and aerospace applications, into a sound and expansive business for known commercial markets where the cost of these materials has kept them out of reach. |
Return
to Brief Descriptions of Focused Programs
Date created: 1994
Last updated:
April 12, 2005
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ATP
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