The Composites Research Network - a Path to Effective and Low-Risk Knowledge-Based Composites Manufacturing

Composites manufacturing is today largely based on corporate know how - relying on an experienced workforce with relevant hands-on experience to develop and maintain robust processes. An experience based approach may be adequate for small, low complexity, structures but has shown to be woefully inadequate in developing robust processes for many of the large, complex and integrated structures built today.

Without a sound understanding of why different “processing recipes” work in different situations we are facing enormous challenges when tackling size and product scaling. Even if we can get it right by trial-and-error, we are exposing ourselves to large manufacturing risk by not understanding why a process works.

Although there is significant research activities in academia and elsewhere aimed at understanding the fundamental science behind many processing phenomena, the resulting information (journal articles and technical reports) is very compartmentalized and seldom presented and synthesized in a form that is readily useful in industry. Industrial R&D activities, on the other hand, tend to be more focused on development than research, which leaves a gap in the know-why of many industrial processes.

The Composites Research Network (CRN), based at The University of British Columbia, is an industry supported innovation and technology transition centre in composites manufacturing and design. Its core mission is to develop “knowledge in practice” documents (KPD) that enable effective and low risk knowledge-based composite manufacturing and design. The KPDs provide the missing link between academic research and industrial practice that enables innovation in composites processing and design.