Composite Technologies Center of Excellence (CTCE) brings university and industry together under the same roof in order to deal with all of the basic research, applied research, technology development, product development, resourcing, and manufacturing process issues associated with composite products. Also present in this ecosystem are all of the designers, engineers, production process managers and personnel, doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers, faculty members, and incubators/entrepreneurs who play a vital role in the overall process. Thus, Composite Technologies Center of Excellence serves customers at every stage of the research and development cycle beginning with basic research, continuing with prototyping, and ending with mass production.
Built on 15,000 m2 closed area with a 3,350 m2 laboratory infrastructure, Composite Technologies Center of Excellence hosts one of the very few test centers in the world as well as a manufacturing facility.
At CTCE, Kordsa develops innovative and unique intermediate products and applications in composite technologies for a variety of industries, notably aviation and automotive as well as sports equipment, wind turbines and marine. Producing thermoset prepregs for the aviation, automotive and sports equipment, Kordsa boasts a wider product range and more flexible production capabilities thanks to the strength it gains from weaving its own fabric.
Kordsa’s second R&D center, approved by the ministry, is located in the CTCE. Kordsa’s R&D center at the CTCE enables the company not only to develop products but also to engage in the mass-production of prepregs, fabrics, and panels for the composites industry.
Composite Technologies Center of Excellence provides facilities for both fundamental and applied research, product development, graduate and life-long education. It also acts as a center for incubation services as well as commercialization opportunities in composite manufacturing technologies and has the capacity of employing 15 faculty members, more than 90 graduate and undergraduate students, and about 40 researchers, engineers and administrative staff.
The Advanced Composites Manufacturing Lab aims to manufacture high quality engineered composite part utilizing both conventional and robotic based manufacturing technologies through process modeling to explain process-robot interaction, robot motion and path planning using physical models. The lab is equipped with Robotic Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) for composite manufacturing, lab and industrial scale Hot Presses, Robotic Machining and Abrasive Waterjet Machining of composites and metals, and additive manufacturing of composites.
In the Mechanical Testing and Structural Health Monitoring Laboratory, the mechanical properties of all kinds of materials are characterized and reported in accordance with international standards, accredited testing services and reports are provided, all total quality requirements are met and documented. Technical Data Sheets (TDS), Metallic and non-Metallic Materials Properties Development and Standardization (MMPDS) data, Design Allowables (DA), Fatigue and Damage Tolerance (F&DT) characteristics are provided.
Wet Chemistry Laboratory was equipped for different kinds of synthetic experiments from the production of newly designed monomers and nanomaterials to polymer synthesis. The facilities in the lab bring innovative solutions in the field of textiles, hygiene, household goods, automotive, aerospace and energy.
Polymer Processing Laboratory offers the development of thermoplastic polymer compound formulations, masterbatch preparation, and improved manufacturing processes. This lab is equipped with a twin-screw extruder with the capacities of 500 g up to 20 kg, a high shear compounding machine, an injection molding, a film blowing system and two chemical reactors.
Material Characterization Laboratory covers the thermal, thermo-mechanical, rheological and structural characterization of all composite materials and individual components used in composite manufacturing. The lab is capable of characterizing thermal properties of materials by means of thermo-gravimetric (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermal conductivity measurements.
Additive Manufacturing Lab aims to develop novel Additive Manufacturing Technologies by improving and enhancing existing processes as well as developing new hybrid processes for manufacturing multifunctional complex parts. The lab focuses on metal, high performance plastic, composite and hybrid additive manufacturing processes.
In Computational Mechanics Laboratory, novel modeling tools for a wide variety of problems including variable stiffness design of composite structures to metal additive modeling have been developed. The lab offers simulation services to wide variety of industrial problems including static design cases to dynamic crash simulations that could be achieved by using various commercially available software based on customer needs.
Autoclaves are essentially heated pressure vessels usually equipped with vacuum systems into which the bagged lay-up on the mold is taken for the cure cycle. This advanced composite process produces denser, void free moldings because higher heat and pressure are used for curing. It is widely used in the aerospace industry to fabricate high strength/weight ratio parts from preimpregnated high strength fibers for aircraft, spacecraft and missiles.
At Fiber Cutting Room, dry fibers such as glass, carbon and aramid can be cut almost in every shape with its decagonal rotary knife. Prepregs can also be cut almost in every shape with its drag knife. With the pneumatic oscillating knife, sandwich core such as Nomex™ honeycomb and foam for the manufacturing of composite sandwich panels can be cut.
