TPAC is growing and, therefore, our laboratory space will be expanded with an additional 290 square meters of floor space. This will allow TPAC to move its labscale- and test-equipment to the new lab space, reserving the current lab space for industrial equipment, allowing for trials closer to industrial reality.

This expansion will also allow the industrial lab to be reinforced by the installation of a Kuka robot with an extruder for 3D printing of large continuous fiber reinforced composite structures (range of 4,8 meter in diameter). In addition, a hot-cold press for compression moulding will be installed as part of the laboratory expansion, allowing for consolidation of  semi-finished composite plates from woven tapes (“organosheets”) or stacked UD-plies for subsequent use in overmoulding.

With the expansion, TPAC now covers the full TPC process-cycle from composites tape through weaving/3D-printing, organosheets manufacture, overmoulding and potential recycling through shreddering and re-processing via low-shear mixing and compression moulding. This offers a unique R&D environment for TPCs to TPACs partners and students!

The building activities and installation work is expected to be finished in April 2023.