Hot Powder Bed Compaction of Fiber Reinforced Thermoplastics via Additive and Subtractive Manufacturing

Additive manufacturing has the potential to transform how lightweight composite components are designed and produced for transportation, aerospace, energy, and defense applications. However, many polymer-based printed parts suffer from internal voids, weak bonding between printed layers, and limited structural reliability, which restrict their use in demanding environments. This award supports research to improve the quality and performance of printed composite materials through an accessible processing approach known as Hot Powder Bed Compaction (HPBC). By enabling stronger, lighter, and more reliable parts without expensive tooling via AM-HPBC, the research will help expand domestic manufacturing capability, reduce material waste, shorten supply chains, and support rapid production of critical components. The award also provides hands-on training for undergraduate and graduate students in advanced manufacturing, materials characterization, and engineering design, helping prepare a skilled workforce for emerging US manufacturing industries. These outcomes directly support national prosperity, technological competitiveness, and national defense. This project investigates the process–structure–property relationships governing HPBC as a thermomechanical processing method for additively manufactured fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites. The central objective is to determine how consolidation within a heated granular support medium differs from conventional rigid-tool processing and how those differences influence void reduction, interlayer bonding, dimensional stability, residual stress, crystallinity, and mechanical performance. The research will combine experimental fabrication of additively manufactured composite specimens with controlled HPBC processing under varying temperature, pressure, and dwell-time conditions. Mechanical testing, microscopy, thermal analysis, and dimensional metrology will be used to quantify tensile, compressive, and fracture behavior alongside microstructural evolution. Modeling efforts will be used to understand heat transfer, pressure transmission between viscoelastic granular and composite mediums that determine deformation during consolidation. The expected outcomes include establishing processing route guidelines based on the fundamental material behavior and predictive relationships for producing advanced composite parts with complex geometries, thereby advancing the science of scalable and cost-effective manufacturing of high-performance polymer composites. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. NSF Award ID: 2512907 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Oleksandr Kravchenko | Institution: Old Dominion University Research Foundation, NORFOLK, VA | Award Amount: $400,000 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2512907 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2512907.html