The U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory, Iowa, announces that one of its research teams has won an award for the development of a “hot-shot pour tube” technology that can produce titanium powder approximately ten times more efficiently than traditional methods. ASM Fellow Iver Anderson, Senior Metallurgist, and his team have been named winners of a 2017 Excellence in Technology Transfer Award from the Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) Mid-Continent Region.<\/p>\n
Titanium powder produced by the hot-shot pour tube technology is said to have enabled a dramatic shift in manufacturing away from traditional titanium casting\/forging methods, to net-shape forming. The technology was the basis for the formation of a multi-award-winning start-up company, Iowa Powder Atomization Technologies, which was purchased in 2014 by Praxair Surface Technologies. In 2015, Praxair began international sales of spherical titanium powder for additive manufacturing and metal injection molding for aerospace, medical, and industrial parts.<\/p>\n
In addition to Dr. Anderson, the award is shared by ASM member Dr. Andy Heidloff and Dr. Joel Reiken, formerly of Ames Laboratory and now of Praxair; and Dr. David Byrd, Dr. Ross Anderson, and ASM member Dr. Emma White of Ames Laboratory.<\/p>\n
“Our team is very proud to accept this FLC award,” declares Dr. Anderson. “It helps us keep pushing Ames Laboratory’s processing science forward to these ultimate technology transitions involving our people.”<\/p>\n
In a letter of support for Ames Lab in the FLC competition, Praxair Vice President Dean Hackett wrote, “Ames Laboratory is uniquely equipped and staffed with talented researchers who work as a team to develop breakthrough technologies in the production of atomized powders. Praxair has chosen to commercialize the titanium atomization technology from Ames, and also to hire two of the three investigators (Dr. Heidloff and Dr. Reiken) who were responsible for this unique titanium atomization process.”<\/p>\n