AVK Innovation Award 2025 goes to Bremen and Chemnitz

STFI and FIBRE on the winners’ podium

Frankfurt/Dresden – The winners of the prestigious AVK Innovation Award for fibre-reinforced composites were honoured this year on 21 October 2025 at the JEC Forum DACH in Dresden. The award recognises companies, institutes and their partners in the categories ‘Products and Applications’, ‘Processes and Methods’ and ‘Research and Science’ for outstanding innovations in the field of composites. A panel of experts comprising engineers, scientists and specialist journalists assesses the entries based on criteria such as the level of innovation, degree of implementation and sustainability.

In the Research/Science category, Faserinstitut Bremen e. V. (FIBRE) and the Sächsisches Textilforschungsinstitut e. V. (STFI) secured third place for the development of highly integrated organic sheets (HIOS) based on hybrid rCF non-wovens and the associated thermoforming process for aerospace structures with final contours.

As part of the LuFo VI-2 project (FKZ: 20E2116A; 20E2116), a resource-efficient process chain was established, ranging from semi-finished products to components. The organic sheets feature closed box structures, local reinforcements and variable thickness, exemplified by a spoiler segment. To this end, the STFI developed a quasi-continuous intermittent hot-pressing process for the production of organosheets with locally variable thickness from recycled carbon fibres, whilst FIBRE provided a complementary thermoforming process, including the tooling, which enables thermoforming and joining in a single step.

“Together with the Fibre Institute Bremen, we were able to demonstrate what is possible with recycled carbon fibres. Thank you very much for this award! We are confident that, together with our national partners, we will continue to drive forward the use of recycled materials in the aviation industry,” said Christopher Albe, Group Leader for rCF and Fibre Composites.