Air Products installs nitrogen supply system for Boeing composite-wing autoclave
February 15, 2017
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Air Products, Lehigh Valley, Pa., recently installed an advanced nitrogen supply system at Boeing's new 777X Composite Wing Center in Everett, Washington. The nitrogen will be supplied to the world's largest autoclave, where it will create the inert atmosphere and rapid pressure required to form and cure large carbon fiber composite wings for Boeing's new 777X commercial jetliners.
"Boeing is a leader in their industry, and we are excited to build on our existing relationship by playing a part in the fabrication of the world's largest carbon fiber composite wings for their newest commercial jetliner,"
"Air Products has extensive experience in supplying the aerospace industry, particularly with autoclaves, says Paul Householder, vice president‒Western Region Americas for Industrial Gases at Air Products. "We appreciate Boeing's confidence in our ability to provide them with a reliable supply of high-quality nitrogen for this very critical application."
The advanced nitrogen supply system includes three 15,000-gallon liquid tanks and a steam sparged water bath vaporization system. Boeing's assembled wings are placed into the autoclave, which is closed, sealed, and flooded with nitrogen at specific flow rates, pressures and temperatures to purge out oxygen and create the atmosphere required for the curing process. This project represents the third major autoclave project Air Products has completed with Boeing in the last three years.
www.airproducts.com/aerospace.
http://www.airproducts.com
Air Products, Lehigh Valley, Pa., recently installed an advanced nitrogen supply system at Boeing’s new 777X Composite Wing Center in Everett, Washington.
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QuesTek receives Tibbetts Award for Integrated Computational Materials Engineering
February 10, 2017
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QuesTek Innovations, Evanston, Ill., announces that it was invited to the White House in early January to accept the U.S. Small Business Administration 2016 Tibbetts Award. This prestigious award is presented to small businesses, organizations, and individuals who have demonstrated excellence in leveraging Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) funding to generate measurable impact through technological innovation, technology transfer, business impact, and product commercialization.
The 2016 Tibbetts Award was presented to 37 small businesses, and QuesTek was specifically recognized for its unique contributions to the field of Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) and President Obama's Materials Genome Initiative.
QuesTek received its first SBIR-funded project in 2001, and has since been awarded over $30 million across a total of 93 projects, all of which have focused on the modeling and design of novel materials.
QuesTek's reported commercialization value ranks it in the 95th percentile of all SBIR recipient companies. SBIR funding (from DOD, DOE, DARPA and NASA) has enabled QuesTek to create more than 30 jobs; transition its ICME technology and a team of engineers to a leading Silicon Valley consumer electronics corporation; form a joint venture with Thermo-Calc Software in Sweden to expand its ICME offerings into the European market; and enter into a strategic partnership with a major U.S.-based company to design and commercialize game-changing alloys.
Under SBIR-funded projects, QuesTek designed and commercialized two ultra-high performance steels: Ferrium M54 steel and Ferrium C64 steel. Ferrium M54 steel was successfully qualified and transitioned into the U.S. Navy T-45 fleet for the safety-critical hook shank component application, and is bringing an estimated $3 million in savings to the Navy based on an order of 60 components. Ferrium C64 steel is being qualified by Bell Helicopter and Sikorsky/Lockheed Martin for next generation helicopter transmissions, replacing lower-performing steels and allowing for significant increases in power density.
Both of these steels have received U.S. patents and are commercially available through a license agreement from leading specialty steel producer, Carpenter Technology.
www.questek.com
QuesTek Innovations, Evanston, Ill., announces that it was invited to the White House in early January to accept the U.S. Small Business Administration 2016 Tibbetts Award.
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Carpenter buys Puris for its titanium powder capabilities
February 6, 2017
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Carpenter Technology Corp., Philadelphia, announces that it has agreed to purchase substantially all of the assets and business of Puris LLC, a producer of titanium powder for additive manufacturing and advanced technology applications. The assets and business to be acquired include Puris' titanium powder operations and business, additive manufacturing assets, patents, and related intellectual property.
"This acquisition will provide Carpenter with immediate entry into the rapidly expanding titanium powder market, and is consistent with our strategic focus on strengthening our leadership position in important growth areas," said Tony Thene, Carpenter's President & CEO. "Puris brings industry leading technology and processes for the production of titanium powder, additive manufacturing part production capabilities, a talented team, attractive intellectual property, and established customer relationships. The strengths of Puris, coupled with Carpenter's reputation as an industry leading producer of premium alloys and our global commercial reach, will allow us to further deliver on the growing needs of our customers."
As a result of the transaction, which cost $35 million, Carpenter will enter the titanium powder market significantly earlier than previously planned, and will reduce its planned fiscal year 2017 capital expenditures by approximately $20 million.
Operations will continue at the existing site, which is well positioned for future expansion and will operate as a functional unit of Carpenter Powder Products, complementing Carpenter's existing broad portfolio of well-established powder metallurgy portfolio.
According to Stephen Peskosky, Vice President of Corporate Development at Carpenter, "The addition of titanium powder to Carpenter's existing capabilities is significant due to the current and anticipated demand increases from the additive manufacturing industry, which produces mission-critical parts supplied to Aerospace and Medical markets, as well as other markets."
www.cartech.com
Carpenter Technology Corp., Philadelphia, announces that it has agreed to purchase substantially all of the assets and business of Puris LLC, a producer of titanium powder for additive manufacturing and advanced technology applications.
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Additive manufacturing survey shows growth in Defense, Aircraft, and Space
February 3, 2017
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Defence IQ, London, recently conducted a wide-ranging survey of additive manufacturing in the defense, aerospace, and space industries to explore what has changed in the last 12 months and what the future holds. The findings are summarized in an infographic that shows much more than the section shown here. This section refers only to answers to the question, "Which companies are the leaders in applying additive manufacturing?"
The graph compares the results of the 2015 survey to the results of the 2016 survey. The outcome displayed here shows that GE Aviation has moved firmly into the lead at 63%. Last year's leader Airbus, at 53% in 2015, fell to 40% in 2016.
One section of the infographic shows that 37% of respondents think that international bodies should lead additive manufacturing certification efforts, down from last year's survey. The trend for 2017 shows that more people think it should be led by cross-sector working groups.
Other sections of the survey ask what are the industry's biggest challenges, how many stakeholders are aware of the benefits of AM, and how many respondents think that AM will be "standard and ubiquitous" over the next years and decades.
Download the full infographic here: http://bit.ly/2hMibdi
Defence IQ, London, recently conducted a wide-ranging survey of additive manufacturing in the defense, aerospace, and space industries to explore what has changed in the last 12 months and what the future holds.
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Airbus awards Ducommun multiyear contract to produce titanium structures
January 27, 2017
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Ducommun Inc., Carson, Calif., has received a multiyear, multimillion dollar contract from Airbus to produce additional titanium structures for engine support and engine frames on the A320neo (new engine option) aircraft. The award increases Ducommun's content on the single-aisle jetliner. Ducommun will manufacture these titanium engine support structures using its proprietary hot-forming and superplastic forming processes at its operations center in Parsons, Kansas.
"This award further demonstrates our support of Airbus with innovative, value-added structural solutions, and we are certainly pleased to see their continued confidence in our capabilities," said Stephen G. Oswald, president and chief executive officer. "We believe our expertise in a wide array of titanium forming technologies presents numerous opportunities for accelerated growth across the aerospace industry. This is a key area of strategic focus for Ducommun, and we are investing in technologies that will support our customers' changing requirements for their next generation aircraft."
www.ducommun.com
Ducommun Inc., Carson, Calif., has received a multiyear, multimillion dollar contract from Airbus to produce additional titanium structures for engine support and engine frames on the A320neo (new engine option) aircraft.
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Sturbridge Metallurgical wins Sikorsky approval for materials testing
January 25, 2017
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Sturbridge Metallurgical Services Inc., Sturbridge, Mass., announces that it has been approved as a Materials Testing Lab for Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. (a Lockheed Martin Corp.) and its manufacturing supplier base. Manufacturers, suppliers and/or vendors of Sikorsky, as well as Sikorsky directly, can now utilize the full scope of Sturbridge Metallurgical's materials testing capabilities. Suppliers can access their approved certification letter through the Sturbridge Metallurgical website and navigate to the quality assurance section.
Sturbridge offers chemical analysis, SEM/EDS analysis, failure analysis, tensile testing, GE grain size ratings, corrosion testing, metallography, hardness and microhardness testing, and a variety of other metallurgical testing services.
"Our team has worked extremely hard to put the systems in place to ensure that organizations such as Sikorsky and their supply chain will want to have their parts tested here," says Brendan Fullam, General Manager and Business Development Manager at Sturbridge. "We have a great team here and everyone works very hard to keep our customers happy. Having Sikorsky grant us approval validates all of the effort and time that they have put into the organization, and keeps us even more focused on demanding the best from ourselves."
www.smslabs.com
Sturbridge Metallurgical Services Inc., Sturbridge, Mass., announces that it has been approved as a Materials Testing Lab for Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. (a Lockheed Martin Corp.) and its manufacturing supplier base.
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Questek to develop titanium, aluminum, steel alloys for military AM parts
January 13, 2017
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Questek Innovations LLC, Evanston, Ill., was recently awarded six separate projects from the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army to develop technologies and design new alloys specifically tailored to the unique processing conditions and materials-related challenges of additive manufacturing. These include one Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project, two SBIR Phase I projects, and three Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I projects focused on aluminum, titanium, and steel systems. The combined funding contract value exceeds $2 million.
"A materials-based approach to addressing the challenges of additive manufacturing is crucial for accelerating the development of this technology and achieving, or even surpassing, the performance of traditionally-processed alloys," says ASM Fellow Aziz Asphahani, Questek's Chief Executive Officer. "We look forward to the outcomes of these projects, and the prospect of adopting ICME-designed alloys as the first-generation, high-performance additive manufacturing materials."
The awarded projects include the following:
Under an Office of Naval Research (ONR)-funded Phase II SBIR project (Topic N141-062) titled "Computational Design of Aluminum Alloys for use in Additive Manufacturing," Questek is furthering the development of three Questek-designed aluminum alloys specifically for processing by Direct Metal Laser Sintering AM. The goal of this program is to combine AlSiMg alloys, which can be printed without cracking but have low strength, with the 6061/7050 alloys, which have high strength but which crack during additive manufacturing. corrosion tests.
Under a U.S. Navy Phase I STTR project (Topic N16A-007) titled "Optimized High Performance Stainless Steel Powder for Additive Manufacturing," Questek is developing a new powder specification for high-strength martensitic precipitation-hardenable 17-4 stainless steel, optimized specifically for selective laser melting (SLM) technologies.
Under an ONR-funded Phase I STTR project (Topic N16A-022) titled "Integrated Computational Material Engineering Tool Set for Additive Manufacturing of Stainless Steel (316L)," Questek is developing an "Integrated Model Toolkit" that enables the modeling of AM process by predicting local composition, microstructure, residual stresses, defects, and mechanical properties for stainless steel 316L aerospace components.
Under a U.S. Army Phase I SBIR project (Topic A15-104) titled "Application of ICME to Optimize Processing of State-of-the-art Gear Steels in Additive Manufacturing," Questek atomized, built via LENS and DMLS AM processes and evaluated its high-performance carburizable Ferrium® C64® steel.
Under an ONR-funded Phase I SBIR project (Topic N161-071) titled "Additive Manufacturing Development of Naval Platform Heat Exchangers," Questek is extending its ICME tools to evaluate materials for the DMLS production of heat exchangers. The project includes fabrication of test specimens to address one of the unique challenges to AM of heat exchangers: minimum component thickness.
Under a U.S. Navy Phase I STTR project (Topic N16A-004) titled "Quantifying Uncertainty in the Mechanical Performance of Additively Manufactured Parts Due to Material and Process Variation," Questek is extending the Accelerated Insertion of Materials framework for managing the uncertainty of material properties to the mechanical performance of laser power bed additively manufactured Ti-6Al-4V materials.
www.questek.com
Questek Innovations LLC, Evanston, Ill., was recently awarded six separate projects from the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army to develop technologies and design new alloys specifically tailored to the unique processing conditions and material-related challenges of additive manufacturing.
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Electron beam additive manufacturing system to build titanium aircraft parts for Airbus
December 31, 2016
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Sciaky Inc., Chicago, announces that Airbus has taken delivery of a state-of-the-art electron beam additive manufacturing EBAM 110 system to build large structural parts of titanium.
Sciaky's EBAM process combines computer-aided design, additive manufacturing processing principles, and an electron beam heat source. Starting with a 3D model from a CAD program, Sciaky's fully articulated, moving electron beam gun deposits metal via wire feedstock, layer by layer, until the part reaches near-net shape. From there, the near-net shape part requires heat treatment and post-production machining.
Sciaky brings quality and control together in one step with IRISS – the Interlayer Real-time Imaging and Sensing System. IRISS is the only real-time monitoring and control system in the metal 3D printing market that can sense and digitally self-adjust metal deposition with precision and repeatability. This closed-loop control is the primary reason that Sciaky's EBAM 3D printing process delivers consistent part geometry, mechanical properties, microstructure, and metal chemistry, from the first part to the last.
EBAM utilizes wire feedstock of a wide variety of metals and refractory alloys, such as titanium, tantalum, niobium, tungsten, Inconel, and stainless steels. Sciaky's EBAM 110 system has a work envelope of almost six feet by four feet.
www.sciaky.com
Sciaky Inc., Chicago, announces that Airbus has taken delivery of a state-of-the-art electron beam additive manufacturing EBAM 110 System to build large structural parts of titanium.
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CVD Equipment acquires chemical vapor deposition technology from Tantaline
December 23, 2016
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CVD Equipment Corp., Central Islip, N.Y., has purchased certain tantalum chemical vapor deposition technology formerly owned by Tantaline A/S, Nordborg, Denmark, and now owned by a CVD subsidiary operating under the name Tantaline CVD A/S. The innovative tantalum chemical vapor technology, called Tantaline treatment, is used to create a tantalum surface alloy on parts such as valves, fittings, autoclaves, process chambers, flow reactors, fasteners, mixers, flowmeters, and medical devices, as well as other parts that are susceptible to corrosion in harsh environments.
These parts are used across a broad range of industries including chemical processing, oil & gas, mining, pharmaceutical, and medical. In hot corrosive acidic environments (>150°C) such as sulfuric, nitric, and hydrochloric acids, Tantaline treated parts outperform most high priced specialty alloys and function nearly at the level of solid tantalum parts. Tantaline treatment thereby provides solid tantalum-like superior corrosion resistance at a lower part cost.
With this strategic acquisition, CVD Equipment gains access to new markets and applications," says Leonard Rosenbaum, President and CEO. " Additionally, sales and manufacturing operations in Denmark expand our geographic footprint. Plans are also under consideration for additional coating facilities in the United States and elsewhere. This is part of our strategic plan to leverage our equipment know-how and proven ability to scale up deposition processes into offering high value-added materials, products, and services. This is the first step in our combined organic and acquisition growth initiative for 2017."
CVD Equipment Corp. designs, develops, and manufactures a broad range of chemical vapor deposition, gas control, and other state-of-the-art equipment and process solutions to develop and manufacture materials and coatings for research and industrial applications.
www.tantaline.com
www.cvdequipment.com
CVD Equipment Corp., Central Islip, N.Y., has purchased certain tantalum chemical vapor deposition technology formerly owned by Tantaline A/S, Nordborg, Denmark, and now owned by a CVD subsidiary operating under the name Tantaline CVD A/S.
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Vertical drop bottom furnace to heat treat aerospace aluminum alloys
December 14, 2016
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Consolidated Engineering Co., Kennesaw, Ga., announces that it has received a purchase order for a mobile gantry drop bottom heat treat furnace system from a leading provider of aluminum alloys for aerospace applications. The solution furnace is a vertical tower furnace for aluminum alloys. It is supported by one of two quench tanks – water and glycol in water. Also included is a vertical rinse with glycol thermal separation/reclamation.
The new solution furnace is a key component in a large expansion by this company to satisfy increasing demand for its aluminum alloys. CEC was chosen as a partner based on technical competence and successful prior furnace installation in 2012.
Drop bottom furnaces are used when material properties are critical and the time from solution heat treating to quench must be minimal. CEC has a standard line of furnaces covered in its drop bottom system (DBS) series. For instance, a DBS 200 has 200 cubic feet of load basket capacity. CEC units range in sizes from 50 cubic feet to 300 cubic feet in standard configurations and designs. Mobile quench tanks can be heated and cooled, and percent glycol can be controlled
www.cec-intl.com
Consolidated Engineering Co., Kennesaw, Ga., announces that it has received a purchase order for a mobile gantry drop bottom heat treat furnace system from a leading provider of aluminum alloys for aerospace applications.
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