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Processses & Materials

Composite Fiber 3D Printing

ADDMAN’s composite printing combines polymers with carbon or glass fibers, creating lightweight, durable parts that balance strength and performance.

What is Composite Fiber Printing?

Our composite printing technology combines polymers with high-strength fibers like carbon or glass, creating materials with exceptional strength-to-weight ratios. This innovation allows for the production of lighter yet stronger parts, tailored to the demands of industries like aerospace, automotive, and defense.

With fibers embedded in strategic orientations, our composite-printed parts resist wear and stress in challenging environments, offering superior durability and extended lifecycle performance in demanding applications.

The Process

How the Technology Works

With precise control over fiber orientation in each layer, this advanced process allows for parts to be tailored to specific strength and durability needs, delivering optimized performance for unique applications.

  1. CF3D Enterprise™ solution utilizes a standard CAD model of the desired part
  2. CF3D Studio™ software is used to define fiber orientation- resulting in control over the mechanical, thermal, and even electrical properties of the final composite.
  3. The output of CF3D Studio™ is then used to control an exact robotic system to guide the proprietary printhead
  4. Printhead combines economical dry OTS fibers and one of CCI’s proprietary resins (polymer matrix or ceramic matrix) to deposit and snap-cure the high-performance material
  5. The result is an optimized, fiber-steered true 3D continuous fiber-printed composite

Materials

Each of these materials brings unique strengths, allowing them to be tailored to specific industry needs and performance requirements.

  • Carbon-Fiber: Known for its high strength-to-weight ratio and stiffness, carbon fiber is often used in applications requiring lightweight yet durable components. It provides excellent mechanical strength and fatigue resistance, making it ideal for aerospace, automotive, and sports equipment.
  • Carbon-Carbon (C/C): This material is carbon fiber reinforced with a carbon matrix, offering exceptional heat resistance and strength even at extreme temperatures, typically above 2,000°C. Carbon-Carbon is commonly used in high-temperature environments such as aerospace, defense, and thermal shielding applications.
  • Fiberglass: A composite material made from fine glass fibers, fiberglass is known for its durability, corrosion resistance, and lightweight properties. It’s commonly used in a variety of applications, including automotive, marine, construction, and consumer goods, where weight savings and cost-effectiveness are essential.

Customer Benefits

Lightweight Solutions with High Strength

Our composite parts combine the best of both worlds: lightweight construction with high strength, making them ideal for applications where reducing weight is crucial without sacrificing durability.

Customizable Strength and Durability

With control over fiber orientation, we tailor each part to meet specific strength and durability needs. This customization leads to parts optimized for individual applications, enhancing both performance and longevity.

Cost-Effective Alternative to Metal

Composite printing provides a cost-effective solution where weight reduction and strength are required but full metal parts aren’t necessary. Customers benefit from similar structural integrity at a fraction of the cost.

Applications

CF3D® composite printing addresses critical challenges across high-performance sectors:

  • Aerospace: Enables low CTE structures for precision components like satellites, resisting warping under extreme temperature changes and reducing material and production costs.
  • Defense: Supports rapid, cost-effective production of lightweight structures, such as optimized wings for unmanned aircraft, reducing costs, tooling needs, and design cycles.
  • Energy: Produces lightweight, efficient replacement parts for power generation with shorter lead times, reducing downtime and enhancing operational efficiency.

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