“With rapid tow shearing our tape-laying head can actually curve each ply in a continuous, carefully controlled way. This means we can continuously shear fibre tapes so that they can tessellate perfectly, with no gaps or overlaps.

“We also make use of wider and thicker tapes, putting down fewer layers to achieve an equivalent performance, or else achieve greater strength from the same amount of material.

“At the same time, our technology makes use of existing, well-understood, composite materials, rather than requiring anything new and can achieve very high deposition rates, boosting productivity.”

Donato adds: “This technique unlocks a whole new range of parameters in the design phase. By being able to curve our fibre lines along different directions across the same plane, we can really tailor our designs, ply by ply, to optimise the final structure’s buckling performance.”