Public Funding for Fergusson's Advanced Composite Technology Limited

FACT, a UK-based company, has pioneered the production of a new type of aerospace pallet made from composite materials. The company's pallets are 40 kg lighter than the industry-standard aluminium pallets and can save airlines substantial fuel costs and CO2 emissions. The company plans to offer both leasing and sale models, based on value-based pricing. The pallets are currently being produced with a subcontractor in Nottingham. To fully capitalise on the opportunity presented by the global air cargo market, which relies heavily on pallets, FACT needs to rapidly scale up production to meet demand while reducing per-panel production costs. FACT has identified that automation is a critical enabling process to meet these targets. The company is responding to this challenge by further developing the aerospace pallet production process it has already pioneered. Specifically, the company will focus on decreasing the reliance on manual handling during the mould assembly process. The innovation will focus on industrialising novel methodologies for controlled material deposition in the form of technology that FACT has progressed to late stages of development. The expected output of this project will be a piece of industrial equipment capable of assembling a composite aerospace pallet panel stack to enable a high-volume aerospace production facility. Without enabling automation, the product would no longer be economically viable to produce in the UK at the volumes expected. The target market for FACT's pallets is the global air cargo market, where 30-40 large airlines account for 75% of the global market.

FAC Technology has designed a new lightweight composite sandwich panel for aerospace cargo pallets. The base panel component is around 50% lighter than conventional 7000 series, aerospace aluminium, sheets. This project has three outcomes: a) To commercialise a disruptive material technology which has been developed entirely in the UK. This project will transform a small London based R&D business into a profitable international company. b) To expand the UK's composite materials supply chain to enter a new market. The UK currently has no manufacturing presence in the air cargo container and pallet market c) To provide a technology that will help the UK's climate pledge of reducing net carbon emissions to zero by 2050 FACT have already developed a composite sandwich panel for the base sheet of an air cargo container. It has been aerospace certified and licensed to the world-leading manufacturer of air cargo products. The company would now like to use the knowledge and experience learnt from its first product to develop a second product, exclusively marketed under FACT instead of licensing the intellectual property to a foreign partner. This loan will enable this to happen.

no public description

FAC Technology have successfully designed and manufactured a face visor PPE product, with tens of thousands of units now having been supplied to hospitals, universities, and businesses. This extension will improve the product, supply and commercial success of the project in three ways: Sustainable and Responsible Innovation Our faceshield is comprised of three components: headband, screen and strap. However, the majority of the existing products are non-biodegradable and made from petroleum based materials. The FAC Technology faceshield utilises a bioderived material for the screen material, and this extension will enable the development of the other components, the headband and strap, to also be injection moulded from environmentally friendly, bioderived, materials. Expansion of Supply FAC Technology has established an existing supply chain with a production capacity of about 5,000 units/week. This extension will enable the investment in tooling to take the production capacity into the region of 50,000 units per week, greatly expanding the UK supply chain, and demonstrate a pathway to further scale up. All components have been, and will continue to be, designed and manufactured in the UK Development of business model and commercial exploitation In addition to B2B sales, FAC Technology would like to adopt mass selling approach for all consumers. Amazon and eBay are the preferred sales channels, but to be brand registered on their marketplaces the product/ company must have further IP protection in place (e.g. Trademarks). This grant extension will facilitate setting up this distribution channel, which is something completely new for FAC Technology.

This project will bring together state of the art material innovations to develop structurally lighter and tougher aircraft cabin flooring panels that can meet the stringent Fire, Smoke and Toxicity (FST) requirements of commercial aerospace interior applications. Such light-weight, damage resistant panels would substantially reduce the lifecycle operating cost of cabin flooring and substantially reduce CO2 emissions through reduced fuel burn. Experimental mechanical and FST testing will be combined and enhanced with numerical methods to create a quick and dynamic development process. These innovations include the use of novel polymer resin formulations and proprietary foaming processes recently developed (but for other applications) to provide better impact resistance and strength after impact than existing cabin flooring materials, as well as controlled and understood fire-resistant and fire-retardant mechanisms. Collaboration with the HAZE lab at Imperial College London (ICL) will be key to better understanding the physical phenomena dominating the ignition, combustion and flame propagation of the different materials under aerospace FST testing regimes. By improving the damage resistance of cabin flooring panels the lifecycle maintenance and operating costs of not only cabin flooring panels, but entire commercial aircraft, can be reduced . Additionally, the weight savings in the panels will lead to substantial reductions in fuel burn associated with the panel lifecycle in, and consequent CO2 emissions from, commercial aircraft.

"This project, titled ""High-Energy Battery Systems with Integrated Structural Thermal Management for Heavy-Duty Applications"" will use the latest in integrated structural and thermal innovations to reduce part count, complexity and cost, whilst improving thermal performance of heavy-duty battery packs. These innovations include the use of integrated heat pipes, to provide an order of magnitude better heat transfer than solid aluminium, as well as structural adhesives with far superior thermal conductivity than existing thermal interface materials. By improving heat transfer from the cells within a battery, packs with higher overall specific energy and power densities can be built, whilst enabling applications that previously required prohibitively costly and complex cooling."

The recent uptake of hybrid and electric vehicles has led to the development of batteries with ever greater capacity. These batteries generate substantial amounts of heat during use. Thermal management is therefore a major challenge. Furthermore, batteries also undergo strucural changes during use, they get larger or smaller depending on the state of charge in the battery, while also becoming incrementally larger over time. Our project makes use of advanced nanomaterials combined with a novel materials processing technology to manufacture a lightweight, highly thermally conductive adhesive to fasten batteries in place in an automotive vehicle battery pack.

The recent uptake of hybrid and electric vehicles has led to the development of higher and higher capacity batteries. These batteries generate a lot of heat during use. Thermal management is a major challenge. Furthermore, batteries also undergo strucural changes during use, they get larger or smaller based on the amount of charge in the battery, while also getting incrementally larger over time. Our project makes use of advanced nanomaterials combined with novel materials processing technology to manufacture a lightweight, highly thermally conductive adhesive to fasten the battery in place in an automotive vehicle. The improvement in thermal properties prevents the battery from overheating, thus lenghtening the lifetime of the battery. The designed material will also be able to withstand the change in size of the battery cell over a lifetime of use.

FACT has developed materials that yield tough composites at a substantially lower bill of materials. The first application of these materials and technologies will be in airline freight container. However, despite the bill of materials for these components being low, the processing cost is still quite substantial due to long cycle times. This project will develop a high speed processing method to a practically relevant scale whilst still yielding comparable material properties. This would enable a lower cost of production and thus allowing a lower sales price which would enable greater capture of market share as well as broader application of FACT’s materials.

To develop and transfer knowledge of modelling methods for composite foams. This will enable the virtual design and testing of large components to the confidence levels required by the commercial Aerospace sector.

FAC Technology have developed processing methods that yield syntactic foams with comparable, if not superior, properties to autoclaved prepreg based syntactic foams. This project will allow best in class, commercially available syntactic foams to be fabricated and tested, with a particular focus on fracture toughness, providing a benchmark for comparison with our new materials and processes.

FAC Technology is a start-up focussed on manufacturing processes for advanced composite materials. FAC Technology has developed a patented process called FACT1, which in certain instances reduces fabrication costs in the manufacture of composite products. The FACT1 process has already been proven to work at a single-unit scale in laboratory conditions. The business opportunity to be addressed by this project is to prove the technical feasibility of large-scale production using the FACT1 process. This work is the critical next step to commercialising the technology. This project will facilitate rigorous process research and development for several general composite products. FAC Technology will also create an application-specific pilot production line in order to demonstrate the commercial viability of the FACT1 process. This pilot production line will be developed by identifying and appraising the potential technologies, materials and equipment that can improve the speed, reliability, cost effectiveness and quality of the manufacturing process. By proving the technical and commercial merits of the FACT1 process, this project will derisk the technology and greatly improve the likelihood of adoption. This will hopefully lead to 3 key benefits: 1. Increased UK R&D in composites manufacturing 2. Introduction of composite materials to a wider range of previously unavailable applications due to lower fabrication costs. Moreover, a corollary of these ‘light-weighting’ opportunities would be to reduce CO2 emissions and increase fuel efficiency 3. Increased long-term high-value manufacturing in the UK

Fergusson’s Advanced Composite Technology Ltd (FACT) is a start-up focussed on manufacturing processes for fibre-reinforced composites. The proposed project aims to understand the commercial implications of a new process developed by FACT. The project will investigate the opportunity within the existing composites markets. The work will include market sizing, segmentation, price sensitivity, buying criteria, and trends, as well as an appraisal of the advantage that the FACT process might have for specific applications. This work is particularly pertinent given that the composite market is split along product lines with very different commercial and technical requirements. This means that the serviceable, available market will be spread over a large number of products with varying appropriateness for the FACT process. The understanding of the various markets developed in the project will allow FACT to effectively focus its resources. More specifically it will allow FACT to decide on a small number of specific products where the FACT process has the greatest advantage over incumbent processes and where the market is accessible. This will greatly improve the chances of successfully commercialising the technology, the benefits of which are twofold: 1. The process has the potential to service a niche in the global composites market. Given the potential advantages of the process this demand could be met by supply based in the UK; 2. The process is more environmentally friendly than some of the existing processes. Furthermore it should facilitate the move from heavier materials to composites. This “lightweighting” dramatically reduces lifetime CO2e emissions in some applications.