About - Advanced Fibre Cluster

Who We Are

The Advanced Fibre Cluster is an initiative of a group of highly innovative companies and organisations centred around Deakin University and the Geelong region, accelerating the growth of Australian advanced fibre and composites capabilities.

The region is a centre of excellence in advanced fibre and composites manufacturing and innovation. The Cluster promotes and supports the interests of its members through the facilitation of research and business collaboration, access to opportunities, trade missions and site visits, advocacy, training, and the sharing of management and technical best practice.

The Advanced Fibre Cluster Geelong includes the following members: ACS Australia, Andritz, Austeng, Carbon Revolution, City of Greater Geelong, CSIRO, Darcan Engineering, Deakin University/Carbon Nexus, Fibre Tech Solutions, Gordon TAFE, GMC, GMS Composites, HeIQ, JUC Surf, Partington AE, Quickstep, SAGE Automation, Sykes Racing, and Urban Service Solutions. The membership is growing.

Find out how you can join.

Participation in clusters has proven to be very beneficial for firms. In empirical studies it has been found that a 10% increase in the level of agglomeration (approximately equal to the size of the cluster) is associated with an average productivity improvement of 1.25%. Other studies show that firms that are part of clusters on average benefit from an increase of 14% in value added growth; 17% in profitability growth; and 2% in wages per employee. These numbers should convince most firms to join in an appropriate cluster. The Geelong fibre cluster is especially important as it operates in an area that is critical to our future low resource footprint economy since it adds value to raw material [everything from cellulose to petroleum] by providing additional functionality for which higher profit margins can be achieved whilst reducing the long term environmental impact – all in all a recipe for success in both today’s and tomorrow’s world.

Professor Göran Roos
The skills in Geelong are exceptional in manufacturing generally and in advanced fibres and composites particularly – because we’ve had global companies here, Ford and Alcoa, and the supply base has learned to think globally. Our companies are entirely integrated into global supply chains.

There are still challenges around carbon fibre production and carbon fibre composites. If the challenges are solved – and we are solving them – we can expand the use of carbon fibre tenfold. Then you move into all forms of transportation, more efficient transportation through the weight saving – and you move into the provision of solutions for super high pressure hydrogen and so on. If the challenges are solved, we’ll have a product you can use anywhere that fibreglass or aluminium are used – and that means greater durability and huge energy efficiencies.

At Deakin University’s Institute for Frontier Materials we are producing PhD graduates who are industry ready. Some of our graduates have started their own companies, for example, Carbon Revolution and FormFlow, while another has invented a new and more cost-efficient process for producing carbon fibre.

What is unique here is the innovative mindset. We have the physical capability, yes, a globally unique, open-access carbon fibre composite research facility. But around that is the ability to develop great thinkers. Universities combined with companies, with industry, are not just inventing, they are producing inventions with commercial value and application.

Derek Buckmaster
Director, Carbon Nexus @ Deakin University
“We’re ramping up production now – going from a 3000 square metre factory to 10,000 square metres over the next 12 months – to meet our customer commitments.

“We’ve come a long way in just the past 10 years. In 2010, we made two wheels for the whole year! Now we are supplying six major Original Equipment Manufacturers. There were a lot of challenges to solve – getting the material system working in a high temperature environment, getting the coatings right, creating thermal barrier. You are dealing with a bolted system – how do you best attach the wheel to the car? It’s a complicated fibrous structure and you have to manufacture it at scale.

“Taking the weight out of a rotating un-sprung mass provides a huge advantage in performance and efficiency. You get five times the advantage gained in removing the weight say from seats, for example. Reducing weight for electric vehicles is also a range extender, so the potential is big.”

“I developed my interest in composite materials engineering while studying mechanical engineering at Deakin. That was where I began to understand the full potential of lightweight composite materials. The people at the University have been a huge support in the success of Carbon Revolution. My PhD was researching composite materials.”

Carbon Revolution and Deakin University recently announced a new $15 million manufacturing research and development project, facilitated by the Innovative Manufacturing CRC (IMCRC).

According to Carbon Revolution’s Chief Executive Officer, Jake Dingle, this research project will support a significant increase in terms of industrial scale and output of its products.

Ashley Denmead
Engineering and Design Director, Carbon Revolution
For Austeng, the Cluster has been an excellent opportunity to enlarge our network and collaborate with innovative and forward-thinking companies. An example is the fibre reinforced bridge project with a 100 year + design life – a world-first in bridge design and manufacture that we have been working on with assistance from members within the Cluster. It is exciting to be (even a small) part of a bigger impetus toward Australia establishing itself as a world leader in the area of fibre composites and advanced manufacturing capability – with attendant flow on effects for the local economy.

Lyn George
Corporate Director, Austeng
We are a small multi-national, headquartered in Switzerland, working with 200 textiles brands globally that really want to innovate. My job is to deliver technology into my company’s pipeline globally. We’ve developed a big platform – this is our kind of skunkworks if you like – and we’re closely engaged here at Deakin to scale it up. The innovation is in the unique materials we can bring rapidly to market, treatments that significantly improve the end product – make it more breathable, for example, or feel like silk, or produce no fuzz.

The best things in innovation are often happening out of the spotlight. Philosophically, research is a partnership. Finding a partner like Deakin who wants to help industry solve problems has made all the difference.

Murray Height
Chief Executive Officer, HeIQ Australia
Clustered industries overseas have been shown to grow 14 per cent faster than non-clustered industries. You get a rapid diffusion of best practices when individuals share knowledge and witness each others’ successes. People become more highly motivated and challenged.  

The Advanced Fibre Cluster has the vision to accelerate what is rapidly becoming a global centre of excellence in advanced fibre and composite innovation. We have already generated a number of collaborative projects among members – and as a result, companies are pioneering new applications, creating new markets and driving business growth for the region and for Australia.

Jennifer Conley
CEO, Geelong Manufacturing Council