IACMI celebrates a decade advancing U.S. composites manufacturing

The Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI, Knoxville, Tenn., U.S.), also known as IACMI – The Composites Institute, is celebrating a decade of revitalizing American manufacturing and strengthening the nation’s defense industrial base. Established by the Department of Energy (DOE), IACMI was announced as the fifth of now 18 Manufacturing USA institutes on Jan. 9, 2015.

For 10 years, IACMI says it has played a pivotal role in U.S. reindustrialization, aiming to secure its position as a global leader in manufacturing innovation and workforce development. Reshoring initiatives have been key to bolstering U.S. economic and national security. Through multiple national workforce programs sponsored by DOE and the Department of Defense (DOD), IACMI has been inspiring, educating and training a skilled workforce to help address the projected 4.6 million open manufacturing jobs in the coming decade.

IACMI’s impact for economic growth has been clear in four primary ways:

• Public-private collaborations: IACMI has convened more than 170 members and 4,500 professionals from industry, academia and federal labs to tackle the composites industry’s challenges in automotive, aerospace, wind, infrastructure and the circular economy.
• Technical innovation: IACMI has connected 90-plus of its members to conduct 60-plus industry-led R&D projects that helped commercialize dozens of products, advance the technology readiness level (TRL) of numerous technologies, and create hundreds of design, engineering and manufacturing jobs.
• Workforce development: Catalyzing IACMI, ACE and METAL programs to enable 100-plus internships with industry collaboration, resulting in 100% placement in industry jobs or higher education; 18,300-plus STEM outreach engagements; 12,400-plus trained online across 50 states in CNC machining; 5,100-plus trained in-person in composites, CNC, metrology and metallurgy; and 40 machine tool training centers in 14 states.
• Leveraging resources: Providing open access to more than $400 million in scale up facilities across eight states has led to an additional $220 million for companies, universities, national labs and workforce initiatives

“For 10 years, IACMI has harnessed the power of public-private partnerships to improve products, processes and people’s lives through composites innovation and workforce solutions,” says Chad Duty, CEO for IACMI. “With steadfast investment and support from industry and government partners, notably DOE and DOD, IACMI has empowered domestic manufacturers to accelerate design and commercialization, fostering a more reliable, secure and competitive U.S. economy.”

Since 2015, IACMI, the DOE and state economic development organizations have invested in a shared infrastructure that collectively delivers a breadth and scale of open-access advanced composites manufacturing R&D capabilities in the U.S. These facility and infrastructure investments have been led by IACMI’s core innovation partners in Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee. Today, these capabilities position IACMI to build on past achievements, de-risk future research and accelerate onshoring efforts in the U.S.

Examples of state-of-the-art scale-up facilities include:

• Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
• Carbon Fiber Technology Facility at ORNL
• Fibers and Composites Manufacturing Facility at University of Tennessee, Knoxville
• Laboratory for Systems Integrity and Reliability at Vanderbilt University
• The Composites Laboratory at the University of Dayton Research Institute
• The Composites Manufacturing & Simulation Center at Purdue University
• The IACMI Scale-Up Research Facility (SuRF) in Detroit, Michigan
• The Composites Manufacturing Education and Technology Facility (CoMET) at National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

IACMI has leveraged these facilities to undertake transformational R&D, in nation-critical industries including energy, transportation, aerospace, and infrastructure and construction. An IACMI-sponsored project team, for example, helped Volkswagen of America (VW) redesign and validate a composite liftgate for SUVs, reducing the weight by 35% and lowering its recurring cost by 9% compared with steel. Technological advances from this research are now being used across multiple VW platforms, including the new VW ID Buzz EV. The scaling, manufacture and testing of novel thermoplastic wind turbine blades that are recyclable and lower in cost has also been demonstrated. Further research in automating finishing processes for wind blades aims to reshore wind manufacturing jobs. Simulation and modeling work to develop a virtual twin for additive manufacturing is revolutionizing the production of tooling.

IACMI has become an “ecosystem of innovation” and has discovered an effective formula that works: Technical innovation + workforce development = economic growth. As the first DOE institute to receive renewed funding in 2023, and with DOD investments expanding proven programs, IACMI is committed to building on these successes. Over the next few years, IACMI and its partners will leverage their full-scale facilities and equipment and significantly expand programs. In this next chapter, IACMI will advance its purpose to convene, connect and catalyze the U.S. composites community by attracting startups and small enterprises while creating opportunities with large enterprises, national labs and universities.