Beyond the Lab: ORNL Tests Composites for the Real World

Oak Ridge research brings composite materials closer to high-volume automotive production with scalable manufacturing and inspection advances

3 Oct 2025

Oak Ridge National Laboratory is stepping up efforts to adapt composite materials for high-volume automotive manufacturing, as carmakers shift their focus from weight savings to production reliability.

Automakers have long accepted that composites can reduce vehicle mass. The question now is whether such materials can be produced at consistent quality, inspected with confidence and integrated into assembly lines designed for metal parts.

Researchers at ORNL’s Composites Innovation Group are working to address these constraints. Rather than promoting a single new material, the team is concentrating on manufacturing processes that could meet the automotive industry’s cost and scale requirements.

Recent studies examine how additive manufacturing can be combined with faster forming techniques such as compression moulding. The approach builds on Additive Manufacturing Compression Molding, or AMCM, a process already licensed to industry partners. The aim is to pair the design flexibility of 3D printing with cycle times closer to those required for mass production.

The work comes as electric vehicles gain weight from batteries and power electronics, increasing pressure on manufacturers to reduce mass elsewhere. Although composites offer significant weight savings, adoption has been slowed by long production cycles, variability and difficulty detecting internal defects.

Alongside forming technologies, ORNL researchers are developing inspection and sensing systems intended to support qualification and certification. Reliable detection of internal flaws is seen as essential if composites are to be used in safety-critical components.

“The opportunity is huge, but the industry needs confidence that these parts can be made the same way every time,” one researcher involved in the work said. Building that confidence, rather than improving raw material performance, has become the central focus.

The research aligns with broader industry trends. Carmakers and suppliers are investing in multi-material vehicle designs that combine aluminium, high-strength steel and composites to balance cost and performance.

Additive processes remain more expensive than conventional metal forming, and standards for composite qualification are still evolving. Even so, incremental gains in repeatability, inspection and scalable processing suggest the sector is moving from experimentation towards industrial readiness.