Continuous Composites Inc. SBIR Phase I Award, July 2023

Continuous Fiber 3D (CF3D) manufacturing is a cutting-edge composite manufacturing technology that has the potential to enable higher-performing (e.g., specific stiffness, dimensional stability) and lower-cost (e.g., less material waste, minimized part count, reduced touch labor) structures for future Navy applications. CF3D works by combining dry fiber tows with liquid snap-curing thermoset resin inside of a print head on the end of a six-axis robotic arm. As the green composite is discharged and consolidated, it is snap-cured into place enabling the manufacturing of complex composite structures (e.g., fiber steering, stacking, tight contours) with high fiber volume fractions (>50%) and low void volume fractions (