The White House says the University of Tennessee will lead the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation, or IACMI, a $259 million public-private partnership. The Institute is funded through a $70 million commitment from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and $189 million from IACMI’s partners.

The Institute will focus on advanced fiber-reinforced polymer composites that combine strong fibers with tough plastics to yield materials that are lighter and stronger than steel.

(Watch a DOE video on the Advanced Composites initiative.)

The selected team, a 122-member consortium, connects leading manufacturers across the supply chain with universities and national laboratories working on advanced composites technology development and research.

IACMI joins four other institutes backed by the Obama administration in a recent push to accelerate advanced manufacturing.

The Institutes are regionally organized around five focus areas: vehicles (Michigan); wind turbines (Colorado); compressed gas storage (Ohio); design, modeling, and simulation (Indiana); and composite materials and processing technology (Tennessee supported by Kentucky).

IACMI includes founding partners in Tennessee (University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Colorado (National Renewable Energy Laboratory), Indiana (Purdue University), Michigan (Michigan State University), Ohio (University of Dayton Research Institute), and Kentucky (University of Kentucky).

The Institute has received commitments from charter corporate contributors such as those with critical connection to the automotive composites supply chain like Ford, Volkswagen, Dow Chemical Co., and DowAksa; premium members with national manufacturing impact like Boeing and Lockheed Martin; and small and medium enterprises like Strongwell Corp., and Local Motors, which are both local to East Tennessee. More than 90 companies across the supply chain are said to support the project.

A news release from the University of Tennessee says that although advanced composites are used in industries such as aircraft, military vehicles, satellites and luxury cars, these materials remain expensive, require large amounts of energy to manufacture and are difficult to recycle. IACMI aims to overcome these barriers by developing low-cost, high-production, energy-efficient manufacturing and recycling processes for the composites sector.

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