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BARC awarded $1.2 million Washington state grant to advance composites research

BARC
June 18, 2019

The Boeing Advanced Research Center (BARC) has received $1.2 million from the Washington State Department of Commerce’s Energy Research, Development & Demonstration Program’s Clean Energy Fund. BARC is one of 10 selected this year out of 52 total applicants.

BARC is a collaborative lab in the College of Engineering with Boeing-employed affiliate instructors working mainly with faculty and students in the departments of mechanical engineering, aeronautics and astronautics, and industrial and systems engineering.

The award — along with additional funding from Boeing and the UW — will help lay the groundwork for a new UW Advanced Composites Center, which will bring together composites manufacturing research projects and educational efforts.

This new center will allow BARC researchers to advance their work to make composites manufacturing economically viable by ensuring better quality, lower energy costs, and waste and scrap minimization. Specifically, the team’s project will demonstrate how to predictably design and produce complex thermoplastic composite parts using automated robotic systems.