FormFlow wins best innovation in Australia by Design Innovations Season 4

Geelong’s innovative manufacturing start-up FormFlow have been announced the Winner of Australia by Design Innovations Season 4.

In 2021, the company’s founders have continued to bring FormFlow Bend to new heights. The Deakin University-incubated high-tech company FormFlow has been unanimously voted the winner of over 40 great innovations in Season 4 of Channel 10’s Australia by Design: Innovations.

The C90 FormFlow Bend is a world-first invention – enabling sharp bends to be created in corrugated iron. The bend technology revolutionises the design and construction industry by delivering smooth transitions between corrugated sheet sections at a range of angles.

For the first time, there is no need for flashing or complex corner design – just a clean and distinctive interlocking join. The game-changing process, which has architects rethinking design and developers reimagining what’s possible, can produce sharp bends perpendicular to the corrugations.

“It is a structural joint and it has all sorts of benefits and it looks great. Before this, if you wanted to connect bits of the roof or bits of the wall, you needed to put two flat sheets and a cover over the top. Now you can do it in one piece,” Dr Matt Dingle, FormFlow Managing Director, said.

Dr Dingle, who co-founded Carbon Revolution in 2007, was formerly lead engineer at Ford’s Product Development Facility in Geelong during the 1990s and later lectured at Deakin University, which is backing Geelong-based FormFlow’s patented process.

Dr Matthias Weiss, FormFlow’s Research & Development Director, has been involved in sheet metal forming research at Deakin for the last eight years. He said that at the ‘Eureka moment’ when the FormFlow Bend was proven, 10 engineers were present, with “all of them standing there saying it couldn’t be done.”

“Then it came out perfect. We were very proud and very excited about the future,” Dr Weiss said.

Australia by Design: Innovations is all about Australian innovation, ingenuity, and design excellence. It is about inspiration, disruption and changing the game. Staring some of Australia’s most novel and inspiring innovations, it aims to demonstrate and display the great variety of products and services being generated right here in Australia.

Watch FormFlow on Australia by Design: Innovations here.