Arris Composites, a start-up company engaged in continuous fiber composite 3D printing production-level applications, received $48.5 million in Series B financing in April this year. Its purpose is to achieve next-generation mass market continuous fiber composite 3D printing production-level applications.
Through its proprietary Additive Molding™ manufacturing technology, Arris Composites combines the additive manufacturing process with the mold process to achieve mass production of high-strength and lightweight composite parts. This new process produces advanced carbon fiber materials at the same rate as plastic molded products.
The founding team of Arris Composites recently revealed some details about Additive Molding™ technology, which will be further shared in this issue of 3D Science Valley.
When high performance encounters high throughput
It is often difficult to achieve "mass production" of complex parts of continuous fiber-reinforced composite materials, which is also the goal that the composite material field has been pursuing. Especially in the automobile manufacturing industry, there is great market potential for the production of cost-effective, high-throughput, high-performance composite components.
It is more common in this market to stretch composite materials into very simple contours, or to enable mass production of chopped fiber composite components, and low-throughput production of continuously oriented fiber-reinforced complex components. Although relatively mature technologies such as automatic fiber placement (AFP) and continuous fiber 3D printing are accelerating production cycles, these technologies have not yet reached the level of mass production of complex high-performance composite components.
Arris Composites' Additive Molding technology's efforts in combining high throughput and high performance have shown the hope of bridging the gap in the continuous production of continuous fiber composite parts.
According to Escowitz, the founder of Arris Composites, 3D printing technology is difficult to achieve mass production due to material and processing costs and speeds. They hope to find a way to compare the performance advantages of 3D printing continuous fiber reinforced composites with speed and cost advantages. In combination, a hybrid technology was developed to achieve high-speed molding of oriented, continuous fiber reinforced components. This technology is expected to open the door for the widespread adoption of complex, high-performance composite materials in the automotive and consumer products markets.
The Additive Molding process has the ability to manufacture small and complex parts.
The key feature of Additive Molding is that it is an integrated process from the raw material entering to the process of filling the mold ready for processing to the demoulding of the finished parts.
The process starts with the dried carbon fiber tow, which is pre-impregnated into tape and tow form through the impregnation process. The prepreg tape can be flat, or can directly form the desired contour shape. Arris Composites has the ability to produce prepreg tapes. A future development of this technology is to feed the tapes (and tows) directly to the next production step. Currently, the company provides prepreg tape widths of 1 to 24 inches (about 2.5-61 cm).
Next, a proprietary robotic device shapes, cuts and places the prepreg into its final position in the mold cavity. After the prescribed prepreg is ready, the mold will close and apply heat and pressure to the composite material for consolidation and curing.
In this technology, the mechanism for placing the material is different from automatic tape placement and the usual 3D printing process. Arris' technology is to shape the prepreg instead of consolidating and bonding in place. This method can increase the speed of preforming.
One of the main advantages of 3D printing is the ability to place fibers in any direction in 3D space, as is the additive molding of Arris Composites. Arris Composites is able to combine the advantages of three different technologies, namely the design scope of 3D printing, the performance of fiber-reinforced composite materials and the cost and speed of mold technology.
Regarding the competitive advantage of Additive Molding compared to other high-throughput fiber-reinforced composite manufacturing methods on the market, founder Escowitz believes that Additive Molding can run the fiber along the required mechanical loading path in a high-throughput way, and Enhance performance where needed. The relatively new rapid preforming method on the market requires more equipment investment and more cutting and consolidation time, and it is difficult to achieve the fiber alignment level that the Additive Molding process can achieve. The additive manufacturing step in the Additive Molding process, compared with other high-throughput fiber composite technology, generates less waste material in the future, which greatly promotes the economy in mass production applications.
The truss displayed by Arris demonstrates the added value of directional fiber reinforcement. If the cross section of the truss is compared with a truss with the same cross-sectional area, the material in the entire truss manufactured by the Additive Molding process is optimized in orientation. Both methods use the same amount of materials, but the complexity achieved by the additive manufacturing process releases better performance.
Arris Composites hopes to significantly reduce the manufacturing cost of fiber-reinforced composite materials, which is an order of magnitude lower than existing technologies. At present, the mold forming step in the Additive Molding process is relatively time-consuming, and the additive manufacturing step can provide layup at the optimal moment of the mold cycle time. In addition, they also hope to begin mass production in 2020.
Arris Composites' Series B financing was led by Taiwania Capital and co-invested by NEA, Valo Ventures and Alumni Ventures Group (AVG).
According to NEA, since NEA began to cooperate with Arris Composites in 2018, NEA has witnessed the maturity of Arris Composites manufacturing technology and is aware of the application prospects of Arris Composites technology in consumer electronics, automotive, aerospace and other industries. Facing the next generation of product manufacturing, Arris Composites manufacturing technology can mass-produce high-performance composite materials in new ways, bringing new hope to various products.
Specifically, Arris Composites has subversive potential in the following two aspects:
Carbon fiber products
Arris Composites has achieved mass production of high-strength and lightweight composite parts through its proprietary Additive Molding™ manufacturing technology. Through this new process, advanced carbon fiber materials can be produced at the same speed as plastic molded products. In order to unlock the potential of the application side, Arris Composites has developed unique software tools for internal design collaboration and application engineering teams. Now, the application side can design and produce previously impossible products through Arris Composites equipment and software. These products are highly integrated, stronger and lighter than metal.
Cross-border design revolution
Arris Composites technology has been applied in multiple markets, using revolutionary continuous carbon fiber reinforcement to make products lighter, stronger, and smarter. On the one hand, Arris Composites' solution meets the needs of industrial and automotive manufacturers seeking to manufacture corrosion-resistant, high-strength and durable glass fiber and carbon fiber structural parts. On the other hand, the Arris Composites solution unleashes the innovative potential of consumer goods and sportswear brands, enabling the consumer sector to seek new business advantages by improving product performance and differentiation.
Currently, consumer electronics is the fastest growing market for Arris Composites, and its next-generation consumer electronics devices are designed to be lighter, smaller, and smarter. 3D printing technology makes the product update cycle short and the pace of innovation fast, and portable electronic devices are likely to be the first manufactured products that Arris provides to the public.