The Department of Energy has renewed its partnership with the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation. The IACMI is a community of industry, universities, national laboratories and government agencies working together to accelerate the development and adoption of innovative manufacturing technologies. The funding connected with the renewed partnership will be used over five years to further technological R&D and accelerate commercialization in the domestic composites manufacturing sector.
Vanderbilt’s Laboratory for Systems Integrity and Reliability is funded by an investment from IACMI. As a part of IACMI, Vanderbilt faculty and students can be part of advancing composites manufacturing technology, which has a significant positive impact on people’s lives and the economy. Every IACMI project is highly collaborative, featuring industry partners from across the composites manufacturing supply chain.
Vanderbilt’s contributions to IACMI are in the general area of manufacturing quality control. For example, as industry partners speed up the process to decrease the cost of composites or make use of recycled materials to make composite manufacturing more sustainable, Vanderbilt faculty and student researchers develop techniques with advanced technologies to sense when there might be a production problem so manufacturers can ensure that their products are effective and safe.
Since its establishment in 2015, IACMI has emerged as a leader in advanced composite design, manufacturing, technical innovation and workforce development.
“Every day people from across the country benefit from composites without knowing it. For example, planes are more fuel efficient and durable precisely because aircraft are constructed largely from composites,” said Douglas Adams, Daniel F. Flowers Professor, Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and founder and co-director of LASIR. “All of us in The Composites Institute are working to bring these benefits of composites to ‘high volume’ applications, like energy efficient automobiles and wind turbines, by making the manufacturing process faster and more affordable.”
IACMI is one of 16 national Manufacturing USA® institutes established to catalyze advanced manufacturing and materials applications and the first to receive a second round of funding from the DOE. With this funding, IACMI will continue to convene, connect and catalyze the composites community by attracting startups and small enterprises and opening doors of opportunity with large enterprises, national labs and universities.
About IACMI – The Composites Institute
IACMI – The Composites Institute is a 120-plus member community of industry, universities, national laboratories and government agencies working together to accelerate the development and adoption of innovative manufacturing technologies for low-cost, energy-efficient advanced composites. Its collaborative work through public-private partnerships drives domestic production capacity, strengthens U.S. manufacturing competitiveness and elevates job creation across the U.S. composite industry. IACMI is managed by the Collaborative Composite Solutions Corporation, a not-for-profit organization established by The University of Tennessee Research Foundation. A Manufacturing USA institute, IACMI is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office, as well as key state and industry partners.