Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

The people at the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation^® (IACMI), also known as IACMI–The Composites Institute^®, are probably asking themselves, “How time flies.”

It was a decade ago on January 9, 2015, that the Department of Energy (DOE) announced IACMI as the fifth of what are now 18 Manufacturing USA^® institutes. A subsidiary of the University of Tennessee Research Foundation named Collaborative Composite Solutions was created to manage IACMI. It and the other 17 Manufacturing USA^® are focused on revitalizing American manufacturing and strengthening the nation’s defense industrial base.

For 10 years, IACMI has played a pivotal role in America’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:

1. Public-Private Collaborations – convening more than 170 members and 4,500 professionals from industry, academia, and federal labs to tackle the composites industry’s toughest challenges in automotive, aerospace, wind, infrastructure, and the circular economy.
2. Technical Innovation – connecting 90+ of its members to conduct 60+ 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.
3. Workforce Development – catalyzing IACMI, ACE, and METAL programs to enable 100+ internships with industry collaboration, resulting in: (1) 100 percent placement in industry jobs or higher education; (2) 18,300+ STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) outreach engagements; (3) 12,400+ trained online across 50 states in CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machining; (4) 5,100+ trained in-person in composites, CNC, metrology, and metallurgy; and (5) 40 machine tool training centers in 14 states.
4. Leveraging Resources – providing open access to over $400M in scale up facilities across 8 states has led to an additional $220M+ 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 that secure America as a global leader in advanced manufacturing,” said Chad Duty, Chief Executive Officer 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 that stand unmatched 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 uniquely position IACMI to build on past achievements, de-risk future research, and accelerate onshoring efforts in the United States.

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 the 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, MI; and

• 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 & construction. An IACMI-sponsored project team helped Volkswagen of America redesign and validate a composite liftgate for SUVs, reducing the weight by 35 percent and lowering its recurring cost by 9 percent 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.

---