A 3D printed mould tool printed on the FLUX CORE in DT Resin.
Fortify, a provider of 3D printers for advanced photopolymer composites, and polySpectra, a supplier of highly durable photopolymer resins, announced strategic funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) aimed at decarbonising the U.S. industrial sector and advancing clean energy manufacturing.
The funding, which will improve America’s economic competitiveness and workforce diversity, was part of a DOE announcement that a selection of 30 projects will receive 57.9 million USD from the Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO).
The DOE awarded 3 million USD to polySpectra and Fortify, along with National Renewable Energy Laboratory, MPI systems, RePliForm Inc, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to develop durable direct additive tooling for automotive lightweighting via Cyclic Olefin Resin-based composites.
“More than 8 billion USD is spent domestically each year on low-volume injection moulding. The work addressed by this DOE award will pave the way for printed injection moulding to unlock production applications,” Josh Martin, CEO and Co-founder at Fortify, said.
The goal of the project is to develop additively manufactured tooling with orders of magnitude improvements on cost and durability versus traditional CNC tooling with cycle times on par with CNC tooling.
Fortify has positioned itself as one of the leaders in developing robust solutions for additive tooling and, through this collaboration, aims to develop a next-generation solution capable of producing long-lasting inserts for the moulding of production volumes of lightweight automotive components from engineering-grade materials, including polymers, composites and metals.
The project will focus on automotive, and the proposed work will address the critical need to develop improved methods for commercial vehicle part production.
The advanced manufacturing technology will accelerate improvements in transportation vehicle fuel efficiency and realise the corresponding energy savings and emissions reduction.
Fortify’s collaboration with polySpectra features significant efforts to amplify underrepresented groups in the automotive manufacturing sector by building skills in additive manufacturing and rapid tooling.
Through training and recruitment programs, the team hopes to create a diverse pool of candidates with the necessary additive tooling skills to enter the automotive work force. Along the way, the project team will be mentoring and providing in-kind support to underrepresented innovators, including students and entrepreneurs.
Raymond Weitekamp, polySpectra founder and principal investigator for the award, said: “Under this research grant, we will leverage Nobel-winning chemistry to directly 3D print these robust composite Cyclic Olefin Resins. The goal of the DOE project is to bring unprecedented materials durability to additive manufacturing, which will provide the industry with immense leverage for the decarbonisation and reshoring of the US manufacturing sector.”
