Continuous Composites has been awarded a 1.9 million USD Tactical Funding Increase (TACFI) contract from the US Air Force to develop a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) tool for Continuous Fiber 3D Printing (CF3D).
The contract commenced in November 2024 and will run through August 2026. It will aim to advance the simulation of anisotropic composite materials, which deliver increased directional strengths based on fibre orientations.
The US Air Force considers existing commercially available FEA solutions to be limited to isotropic materials - where strength and stress responses are uniform in all directions - and therefore underserving anisotropic composites. It means that existing FEA software cannot accurately predict material behaviour based on fibre orientation.
Continuous Composites is now partnering with 'industry experts' on the development of a new FEA tool that will be designed to ingest CF3D toolpath data and generate mesh representations that 'more accurately reflect fibre orientation, material behaviour and structural performance.' The partners believe such a solution will help operators understand how anisotropic parts will react to real-world loads.
The new tool will be be integrated into CF3D Studio and, the partners hope, enable the prediction of material properties and performance before physical testing begins. They expect the new capability to reduce development time and increase reliability in the design of complex composite parts used in mission-critical applications.
"We're solving a major gap in FEA simulation tools," said Steve Starner, CEO of Continuous Composites. "Existing software only assigns a single directional property to each layer of composite material, but CF3D's fibre steering requires a more dynamic approach. Our new tool will accurately simulate how our parts will behave under various conditions, which is crucial for industries like aerospace and defence."
Continuous Composites has also recently received backing from the US Air Force to validate materials for its Continuous Fiber technology.
