Continuous Fiber Composites

ES3’s work is focused in the environmentally responsible development of recyclable continuous fiber composite material. Composite structures (such as wind turbine blades) are too often only disposable through underground burial. This very undesirable end-of-life requirement can and should be avoided. Hence, ES3 works exclusively in developing new composites which are recyclable.

ES3 has several continuous fiber composite development and production machines. Our largest and most advanced is the Electroimpact SCRAM. The SCRAM is a 6-axis machine which enables our material designers to engineer composites where the fiber orientation can be specified at every point in the part’s geometry. In this way, ES3 can optimize part performance by tailoring strength and flexibility where needed. ES3 is developing aerospace replacement parts with unprecedented strength-to-weight ratios.

The 6-axis Electroimpact SCRAM machine located at the ES3 facility in Clearfield, Utah.

Four different closeup views of the SCRAM AM head fabricating an ES3 engineered specimen for test.

The SCRAM unit does not simply deposit material as flat, successive layers.  Instead, the SCRAM provides a “true 3D” capability for complex geometries, variable density cores,  internal structures such as honeycombs, and outer layer finish skins.

ES3 AM continuous fiber composite material development and production is vastly facilitated by our ability to computationally predict the performance of our composite designs.  Our in-house developed MARS solver with its DM4C material modeling technique enables our engineers to iterate rapidly and cost effectively between material design and  computational simulation.  We do not rely on the time consuming and more costly trial-and-error loop of building then testing. AS such, ES3 is able to engineer custom structural components quickly and economically, delivering us to the test and qualification phase of aerospace parts development in record time.  Please visit the MARS Solver – Aerospace Applications section of our website for more information.