CW Talks: The Composites Podcast

In celebration of National Composites Week 2026 (Aug. 24–28), this episode of CW Talks features host Scott Francis, editor of CompositesWorld, in conversation with Jason Gibson, chief commercialization officer at the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI). Gibson discusses this year's National Composites Week theme, "Composites Built to Scale," IACMI's role within the Manufacturing USA network, the scale-up hurdles that stand between a promising composites technology and full production, and an upcoming open house at IACMI's Scale-Up Research Facility (SURF) in Detroit.

In this installment of CW Talks, CompositesWorld speaks with Francesco De Stefano, CEO and co-founder of Caracol (Milan, Italy), about the company's proprietary robotic large-format additive manufacturing (LFAM) platform for composites. What began as a research effort to combine the flexibility of additive manufacturing (AM) with the scale of robotics has evolved into a distributed production model now serving aerospace, maritime, transportation and defense markets. De Stefano discusses how Caracol moved from service bureau to production platform provider, why pellet-based composites printing changes the economics of large parts, and how AI and machine learning are being embedded into the manufacturing process itself.

  In this installment of CW Talks, we explore the world of natural fiber composites and their growing role in sustainable lightweighting with Christian Fischer, CEO and co-founder of Bcomp (Fribourg, Switzerland), a company specializing in high-performance natural fiber composites for automotive, motorsports, marine, aerospace and even satellite applications. What started as a garage project focused on lightweight skis has evolved into an award-winning technology now headed into series production with BMW M. Fischer discusses Bcomp's "race-to-road" strategy, the technical hurdles of scaling natural fibers for demanding markets and where flax-based composites fit — and don't fit — in the broader composites landscape.

In this installment of CW Talks, we explore the use of thermoplastic composites for rotating equipment in variety of sectors from industrial applications to aerospace. We recently spoke with Dave Noblin, product manager for wear-resistant components for Greene Tweed, to learn about how TPCs are being used in this space.

In this installment of CW Talks, we revisit a topic that was discussed on a panel at last year's Carbon Fiber Conference, held in Wichita, Kansas. The discussion revolved around high-rate manufacturing for aerospace, next-generation aerospace and the growing trend around urban air mobility (UAM). We recently sat down with one of the panelists, Mitchell Smith, technology leader at ST Engineering MRAS (Baltimore, Md.), to continue the conversation.