Advanced Composites & Lightweighting

Built from the U.S. DOE vehicle-materials portfolio — carbon-fiber cost paths, vitrimers, additive composites, energy-absorbing structures, body-in-white lightweighting.

Private cohorts & on-site
Format: 3-day (8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.)
Level: Advanced
Location: Scheduled on demand · on-site at your facility or a regional venue
Date(s): Not yet scheduled for open enrollment. Get notified when it is, or book it privately for your team.
Includes: Certificate of Completion · printed slide binder · take-home reference text

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Faculty

Faculty details for this seminar will be announced with the full schedule.

Fees

Early: $1,895 (payment 4+ weeks ahead)
Standard: $2,095 (check/ACH) · $2,165 (card)

Group discount: $200 off per attendee for 3+ from the same organization.

Also Available

  • Corporate on-site delivery at your facility
  • Private cohort sessions
  • Digital curriculum licensing

Seminar Overview

This seminar is built from the actual U.S. Department of Energy vehicle-materials research portfolio — eight peer-reviewed OSTI/DOE papers from the national-laboratory programs, not vendor slide decks. The corpus spans the modern lightweighting frontier: 3D-printed multi-material energy absorbers, binder-free graphite anode materials work, carbon fiber scale-up from petroleum mesophase pitch, vitrimer and natural-fiber low-cost recyclable composites, and the MAT-329 (bio-derivable lightweight materials), MAT-331 (additive-manufacturable dual-curing resins), and MAT-332 (recyclable-by-design carbon fiber composites for battery enclosures) program results, plus tunable PA6 thermoplastic reinforced body-panel systems. Each module is anchored to the real materials, process parameters, and measured properties in these publications.

Lightweighting in 2026 is no longer a fiber-content race — it is a recyclability and cost race. The DOE programs exist precisely because first-generation carbon fiber composites failed the two tests that matter for high-volume vehicles: cost per kilogram of weight saved, and end-of-life recovery. The research in this corpus is where those problems are being solved: vitrimers that reprocess like thermoplastics while performing like thermosets, mesophase-pitch routes that slash precursor cost, dual-curing resins that enable additive manufacturing of structural parts, and battery enclosures designed for disassembly. Engineers who know this literature make material-selection decisions the market will actually reward.

After three days you will be able to specify fiber/resin systems against cost and recyclability constraints, evaluate carbon fiber and recycled-carbon-fiber supply chains, understand vitrimer and recyclable-by-design chemistry well enough to qualify it, apply additive manufacturing to composite tooling and parts, design energy-absorbing structures, run body-in-white lightweighting trade studies, and quantify the full LCA trade-off of a lightweighting decision — citing the underlying DOE research for each position.

Ideal Learner

  • Materials engineers and composite specialists at automotive and aerospace suppliers
  • Body structures and chassis engineers running lightweighting programs
  • Battery enclosure and e-vehicle structures engineers evaluating composite solutions
  • Process and manufacturing engineers implementing new composite or AM processes
  • Sustainability engineers quantifying material LCA trade-offs

Learning Objectives

  • Specify fiber and resin systems against structural, cost, and recyclability requirements using DOE-measured property data
  • Evaluate carbon fiber supply chains, including mesophase-pitch routes and recycled carbon fiber quality
  • Explain vitrimer and recyclable-by-design composite chemistry and its qualification implications
  • Apply additive manufacturing to composite parts, including dual-curing resin systems (MAT-331) and multi-material printing
  • Design and evaluate energy-absorbing structures for crash applications
  • Run a body-in-white lightweighting trade study with a defensible LCA of the weight saved

Consulting Sessions

Seminar attendees can sign up for individual consulting sessions with the instructor. Sessions are free for registered attendees, first-come first-served — sign up when registering by calling 248-539-0473 or during the seminar.

Seminar Outline

  • Reinforcement architectures: continuous, chopped, woven, nonwoven; property-directionality consequences
  • Thermoset vs. thermoplastic matrices: processing windows, toughness, and joining
  • Resin chemistry essentials for engineers: cure kinetics, Tg, and their effect on part performance
  • Cost-per-property thinking: the high-volume vehicle constraint
  • **Worked example: material selection under a cost-per-kg-saved constraint**
  • PAN vs. pitch precursor routes; the petroleum mesophase pitch carbon fiber scale-up research and what it changes about cost
  • Fiber property targets for automotive vs. aerospace grades
  • Recycled carbon fiber: recovery processes, chop lengths, and property knockdowns; real secondary applications
  • Supply-chain security and the DOE rationale for domestic fiber capacity
  • **Case Study: cost breakdown of a carbon fiber part — precursor, conversion, sizing, processing**
  • The recyclability problem with conventional thermosets and why it blocked composite adoption
  • Vitrimer chemistry: dynamic covalent networks, reprocessing behavior, and property retention (per the vitrimer/natural-fiber DOE paper)
  • Natural-fiber hybrids: where they win on cost, carbon, and stiffness-per-dollar
  • MAT-329 bio-derivable lightweight materials: feedstocks and measured performance
  • MAT-332 recyclable-by-design CF composites for battery enclosures: the enclosure-specific requirements driving the design
  • **Exercise 1: qualify-or-not decision on a vitrimer composite for a structural bracket**
  • AM processes for polymer composites: extrusion, sintering, and their anisotropy
  • Dual-curing resin systems for AM (MAT-331): how staged curing enables handling, shaping, and final properties
  • 3D-printed multi-material energy absorbers: design freedom and measured energy absorption from the DOE paper
  • Tooling vs. production parts; print orientation and fiber placement effects
  • **Exercise 2: AM process selection for a ladder of part classes — from bracket to energy absorber**
  • Crash energy management fundamentals: specific energy absorption, crush force efficiency, stroke efficiency
  • Progressive crush of composite tubes vs. metallic rails; trigger design
  • Multi-material hybrid absorbers: what the 3D-printed multi-material research demonstrates
  • Test methods and the simulation challenge for composite crash structures
  • **Case Study: an energy-absorber redesign evaluated on SEA and crush-force-efficiency metrics**
  • BIW architecture: steel, aluminum, and mixed-material strategies; joining dissimilar materials
  • Tunable PA6 thermoplastic reinforced body panels: what the PA6 research shows about property tuning and panel-class applications
  • Multi-material joining: adhesives, mechanical fasteners, and corrosion interaction
  • Stiffness, NVH, and crash targets in the lightweighting trade
  • **Exercise 3: BIW panel material trade study — steel vs. aluminum vs. PA6 composite on mass, cost, and joining**
  • The lightweighting paradox: use-phase savings vs. production-phase burden
  • LCA methodology for material substitution: boundaries, drive-cycle assumptions, and end-of-life credits
  • What the DOE vehicle-materials corpus teaches about defensible LCA claims
  • Recyclability and circularity as design inputs, not afterthoughts
  • **Worked example: cradle-to-grave LCA of a lightweighting substitution, with sensitivity analysis**
  • Integrating the modules: material selection, process selection, joining, crash, and LCA as one decision chain
  • Reading new materials research critically — how to tell scalable results from lab curiosities
  • **Exercise 4 (capstone): full lightweighting proposal for a defined component, defended on cost, mass, crash, and LCA grounds**

More in Track B — Composites & Lightweighting

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