SAMPE Journal - November/December 2021 - 86

NEWS / INDUSTRY ANNOUNCEMENTS
LIGHTENING THE LOAD OF MULTIMATERIAL
MANUFACTURING
WITH 3D PRINTING
The rise of 3D printing has transformed
the manufacturing industry, enabling
manufacturers
to quickly and precisely
SUPREM boosts thermoplastic
Towpreg technology
Suprem is boosting its thermoplastic towpreg technology to support
large scale automated additive manufacturing of composite parts.
Machinery and process innovations have been industrialized to
produce important quantity of high and constant quality unidirectional
tapes and profiles.
Suprem's continuous fibre reinforced thermoplastic tapes and profiles
are dedicated to:
* Tape winding for making pipes and tanks with high burst pressure
* Tape placement of parts with in-situ consolidation
* 3D-printing of complex and light components
Tailored combination of fibres (carbon, glass, aramid...) and highperformance
thermoplastics (from PA to PEEKs) can be processed with
this technology to fulfill customer individual requirements in various
applications from down the sea and up to the space.
See our ad on the back cover!
suprem.ch
create specialized parts for any application.
Soft robotics, flow actuators, electrical
circuits and sensors all make use of these
customizable 3D-printed parts, and the list of
applications continues to grow. 3D printing
has enabled the production of components
made of multiple materials, each with
their own unique properties. However, the
process-which typically includes changing
out vats of liquid and cleaning the lines in
the middle of production-causes slowdowns
and increases costs.
Research led by University of Pittsburgh
engineers promises to streamline multimaterial
manufacturing by using different
wavelengths of light to create reactions
that imbue one specialized material system
with different properties, rather than
changing out the material itself to achieve
the same goal. The research recently
received $500,000 in funding from the
National Science Foundation (NSF) Future
Manufacturing Seed Grant.
Unlike the popular, consumer 3D
printers that melt a filament of solid material
to print layers, the 3D printing that is used
for manufacturing is more complex, using
a liquid that is cured by light exposure
using a laser as the layers are printed into
place. Prior research has explored the use
of wavelength selectivity to create distinct
reactions that cure material for 3D printing
in different ways. This project is the first
systematic and comprehensive study
to establish the chemistry theory in the
practice of multi-material photopolymer 3D
printing.
news.engineering.pitt.edu
Technical Fibre Products (TFP) is delighted to announce the formal opening of a new manufacturing line, significantly increasing
nonwoven capacity in response to increasing demand for TFP's advanced nonwovens across all markets.
The new line was formally opened by Mark Cropper, Chairman of TFP's parent company James Cropper PLC, on Wednesday
July alongside Martin Thompson, Managing Director of TFP, Phil Wild, CEO of James Cropper PLC and Sir James Cropper,
28th
Honorary President of James Cropper PLC. Commissioning of the new line will start soon and this project represents a significant
financial investment for the company, with new infrastructure installed to house the line and extended warehousing to support
the increase in product and raw materials. The expansion also follows an already significant capacity increase in 2015.
TFP is a successful knowledge based manufacturing company specializing in developing advanced nonwovens and other
related materials for highly technical and challenging applications. The company's advanced nonwovens provide innovative
solutions across a number of growth industries such as hydrogen fuel cells, aerospace, defense and wind energy.
tfpglobal.com
86 | SAMPE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021
www. sampe.org
http://www.suprem.ch http://news.engineering.pitt.edu http://www.tfpglobal.com http://www.sampe.org
SAMPE Journal - November/December 2021

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