Automotive lightweight materials congress returns to Detroit
August 3, 2015
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Annual Global Automotive Lightweight Materials Congress
August 18-20, 2015 – Detroit
This is the largest and most trusted automotive lightweight materials conference, and this years instalment of GALM is scheduled to be the biggest and best ever. The series has been attended by 2000+ attendees across the globe and is returning to Detroit with a 3-day agenda – to share unprecedented detail across composites, joining, forming, and multi-material design.
Building on the successes of GALM events in London, Detroit, and Shanghai this year, this event is fully expected to sell-out, with over 80 attendees and 24 exhibitors already confirmed.
The expert panel of speakers includes:
David Wagner, Technical Leader Lightweight Vehicle Design, Ford Motor Co.
Surender Maddela, Sr. Research & Development Engineer, Materials Engineering, Nissan Motor Corp.
Stephen Logan, Senior Engineering Specialist, Chrysler Group LLC
Bhavesh Shah, Senior Advanced Technology Design Release Engineer, General Motors
Nir Khan, Director Of Design, Plasan
Mark Voss, Engineering Group Manager, Body Advanced Technical Works, General Motors
Venkat Aitharaju, Senior Researcher, Polymer Composites, General Motors Global Research and Development
Raymond Boeman, Program Director, Energy Partnerships, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Laurent Chappuis, Technical Expert - Lightweight Stampings, Vehicle Program Engineering – SBU, Ford Motor Co.
Glenn Daehn, Mars G. Fontana Professor Of Metallurgical Engineering, Executive Director, Honda Partnership Program
With an agenda re-written from scratch and providing a globally respected platform for leading OEMs, material suppliers, joining and forming partners, the 2015 agenda provides new, exclusive content including:
NINE UNIQUE CASE STUDIES ON JOINING: Mitigating corrosion with strong joining for every material combination that can be applied with low cycle times
FORMING METALS: Benchmarking forming methods for magnesium and aluminum to enable adoption into multi-material architectures
EIGHT DEDICATED SESSIONS ON COMPOSITES: From reducing the costs and cycle times of production to design modeling and application success stories
DESIGN AND MATERIAL SELECTION: Selecting the optimal materials across the body, interior and closures to maximize total weight loss across the vehicle
RECYCLING: Analyzing the lifecycle implications for aluminum and carbon-fiber, tackling segmentation and re-use challenges
Proto Labs launches rapid magnesium thixomolding service
July 31, 2015
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Proto Labs Inc., Maple Plain, Minn., has introduced magnesium injection molding into its current rapid manufacturing services. This advanced injection molding process, known as thixomolding, enables product designers and engineers to prototype with the same materials and processes as the final production part. In addition to prototypes, Proto Labs offers production parts in quantities up to 5000+, with a typical turnaround time of 15 days.
Magnesium injection molding is a process of manufacturing fully dense, net-shape magnesium parts, similar to those produced in die casting, using an injection molding press. Referred to also as thixomolding, the process involves heating chipped magnesium feedstock in the barrel of a press. A reciprocating screw works the material into a thixotropic (gel-like) state, and the material is forced into a steel mold at high speed and pressure to create the part. Magnesium injection molding is a mature, established manufacturing process that produces strong, lightweight magnesium parts that maintain detailed features and thin walls.
Magnesium is a strong and lightweight metal that is increasingly being used in the automotive and aerospace industries to reduce weight. "In recent years, lightweighting has become a significant factor in automotive product development, for example, as engineers are being tasked with drastically reducing vehicle weight in order to improve vehicle gas mileage," says Becky Cater, Proto Labs' engineer and product manager. "We see magnesium injection molding as an important tool for achieving this."
Magnesium AZ-91D joins Proto Labs' current injection molding offerings that include more than a hundred thermoplastic, liquid silicone rubber, steel, and stainless steel materials.
The company uses advanced 3D printing, CNC machining, and injection molding technologies to produce parts within days. The result is an unprecedented speed-to-market value for product designers and engineers worldwide.
Ipsen Atlas furnace heat treats parts for automotive and oil & gas industries
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Ipsen, Cherry Valley, Ill., recently shipped an Atlas atmosphere furnace, two temper furnaces, a washer, a loader, and a storage table to a commercial heat treater in the Midwest. This single-chain, batch atmosphere furnace will be used to process parts for the aftermarket automotive and oil & gas industries. The single-chain Atlas features a 36 x 48 x 38-in. load size, with a 3500-pound load capacity. It also operates at temperatures of 1450 to 1800 °F and has a quench oil capacity of 3500 gallons.
The furnace offers some of Ipsen's newest design features and innovations, including Carb-o-Prof control software with predictive process capabilities. It has an efficient heating combustion system, which provides energy and cost savings; a cartridge-type heat fan assembly; and variable-speed quench agitation, which allows users to achieve and maintain better quenching control.
Ipsen, Cherry Valley, Ill., recently shipped an Atlas atmosphere furnace, two temper furnaces, a washer, a loader, and a storage table to a commercial heat treater in the Midwest.
PMF Industries, Williamsport, Pa., has expanded its flowforming capabilities with the addition of a new vacuum furnace that allows vertical heat treating of flowformed and machined shafts up to 80 in. long. The vertical-loading vacuum furnace also processes combustor cases, diffusers, seals, and bearing sets for aerospace engines; parts for ground-based turbine systems used in the energy sector; and cylinders for the commercial food and beverage industry.
Flowformed and machined shafts must be heat-treated vertically rather than horizontally to ensure that they remain straight throughout the thermal process. Although PMF's capabilities have long included the heat treatment of flowformed parts and products produced through other metal processing techniques, all of the company's previously existing furnaces feature horizontal loading and are able to accommodate heat treating of shafts only up to 34 inches in a vertical condition.
PMF's new vacuum heat treatment system provides a clean manufacturing environment that offers uniform cooling and features a 46 x 80 inches all-graphite hot zone with a 6000-lb. load capacity. It provides gas cooling to 2 bar absolute pressure, and operates at temperatures of 1000 to 2400°F.
Flowforming is a cold-extrusion, metal-forming process that produces seamless, high-precision, rotationally symmetrical cylindrical, conical, or contoured shapes. The process offers design flexibility and has the ability to produce complex, near-net-shaped components from preforms or blanks, resulting in significant material savings and dramatically lower costs than other metal-forming techniques. Many flowformed parts subsequently undergo heat treating to provide them with additional material properties or physical features required of the finished component.
PMF Industries, Williamsport, Pa., has expanded its flowforming capabilities with the addition of a new vacuum furnace that allows vertical heat treating of flowformed and machined shafts up to 80 in. long.
A bomb-proof lining has successfully contained blasts in a series of controlled explosions in the luggage hold of a Boeing 747 and an Airbus 321. Researchers tested the Fly-Bag, which lines an aircraft's luggage hold with multiple layers of novel fabrics and composites, under increasing explosive charges on disused planes at Cotswolds Airport, near Cirencester, England this week.
Using this technology, tests demonstrate that a plane's luggage hold may be able to contain the force of an explosion should a device concealed within a passenger's luggage be detonated during a flight. This would mitigate damage to the plane and help keep passengers safe. After the tests, explosives were placed in the aircraft without the lining to show the damage that could be caused.
Disasters such as the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 drove the need for this kind of invention, as well as the incident in which a printer cartridge bomb was found on-board a cargo plane at East Midlands Airport in 2010. Fundamental to the design of the bag is a combination of fabrics which have high strength and impact and heat resistance. The fabrics include Aramid, which is used in ballistic body armor.
"Key to the concept is that the lining is flexible and this adds to its resilience when containing the explosive force and any fragments produced," says Andy Tyas of the department of civil and structural engineering, who is leading the research at the University of Sheffield. "This helps to ensure that the Fly-Bag acts as a membrane rather than as a rigid-walled container which might shatter on impact. The purpose of the testing was to see how the concept works in the confines of a real aircraft," says Tyas, who calls the results "extremely promising."
Hardened luggage containers (HULD) have been developed to deal with bombs hidden in passenger luggage, but these containers are heavier and more costly than conventional equivalents. A European consortium working on the Fly Bag project includes Blastech, a spin-off company from the University of Sheffield, as well as partners from Greece, Spain, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands.
The technology could either be something that becomes compulsory for all airlines to use if the law was changed or could be used by airlines responding to particular threats. It has also been adapted for use in cabin holds within the plane if the airline crew spot something they think might be a threat and could be a risk to passengers.
Image caption — Damage to a plane following a final test without the Fly-Bag lining in the luggage hold. Courtesy of U. Sheffield.
VIDEO: Additive manufacturing: 3D printing beyond plastic
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At Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VT), Christopher Williams heads the effort to further advance 3D printing—known among engineers as additive manufacturing—with copper, a widely used conductor in electronics. Williams is using a process called binder jetting in which an inkjet printer selectively jets glue into a bed of copper powder, layer-by-layer. The printed copper product is then taken to a furnace to fuse the particles together.
With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Williams is addressing a major challenge in the 3D copper printing process, which is to eliminate the porosity that develops in the part during the process. These microscopic pockets of air weaken the finished product. Williams's goal is to create an additive manufacturing process for copper that would be practical for widespread use. If successful, the results gleaned from this project can also be used to educate future engineers in designing systems with 3D printing.
Beyond the already functioning "3-D printing vending machine" available to students at VT, researchers hope to integrate their findings into an undergraduate/graduate additive manufacturing course, as well as summer workshops for K-12 science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teachers. These proposed programs will not only instruct students through inquiry-based learning methods but also study how teacher/student perceptions of manufacturing evolve. The research is this episode was supported by NSF award #1254287, Additive Manufacture of Copper Cellular Materials, made through NSF's CAREER (Faculty Early Career Development) program.
NIST hosts first app challenge to improve data access
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Researchers looking for information on the properties of methane at high temperatures or the isotopic composition of an element know they can rely on standard reference data from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, Md. But what they really need is an app (or apps) to make the data more accessible.
As a step in that direction, NIST is launching its first app challenge. Prizes totaling $45,000 can go to developers who create applications that offer new ways to access and use data from one or more of six eligible scientific data collections maintained by NIST.
NIST maintains some of the world's most accurate and comprehensive datasets of physical, material, chemical, and biological data covering a broad range of substances and properties. These datasets are invaluable research tools for physicists, biochemical engineers, environmental researchers, students, and many others. The app challenge is meant to boost awareness of these resources and modernize their use. To support the challenge, NIST has made six of its datasets available in machine-readable format. The contest is open to U.S. citizens or permanent residents over the age of 18.
Challenge participants must make the app available for testing at no cost to NIST, and it must be accompanied by a brief text submission, at least one screenshot of the app, and a brief (less than five minute) video describing the functionality of the app. Entries are due by Sept. 28.
NIST experts will vet technical aspects of the apps and a group of judges will evaluate submissions to identify the best. The criteria for judging will be the app's potential impact, its creativity and innovation, how well it is implemented, and the integration of one or more SRD or other data into the app.
The six eligible NIST Standard Reference Datasets to be used in the challenge are:
CODATA Fundamental Physical Constants (NIST SRD 121) — provides the most accurate internationally recommended values of the fundamental physical constants that are essential to basic theories of physics and our quantitative understanding of the physical universe.
Ground Levels and Ionization Energies for the Neutral Atoms (NIST SRD 111) — primarily used by chemists and astronomers to calculate thermodynamic properties of atoms in chemical reactions and other kinetic processes, and by atomic physicists to benchmark experimental data for advanced atomic theories.
Atomic Weights and Isotopic Compositions (NIST SRD 144) — provides atomic weights for elements 1 through 118 and is used by scientists in detecting radioactive isotopes, dating of paintings and sculptures, determining the origins of meteor samples and more.
NIST Computational Chemistry Comparison and Benchmark Database (CCCBDB, NIST SRD 101) — provides thermochemical data for a selected set of more than 1000 gas-phase atoms and molecules. It is used by chemists to compare experimental results with computational ideal-gas properties.
NIST-JANAF Thermochemical Tables (NIST SRD 13) — originally used by the aerospace industry to understand rocket propellant combustion, these thermochemical data for a range of chemical substances are used world-wide in a range of chemistry, environmental and materials applications. Industry scientists use these tables to predict thermodynamic information about chemical substances, including equilibrium mixtures and heat release.
NIST ITS-90 Thermocouple Database (NIST SRD 60) — provides temperature calibration data for converting a measured voltage to temperature, and is the basis for calibration of thermometers, instrument controllers and other devices that rely on temperature for process control. These types of devices are found in virtually every technology including kitchen ovens, hot water heaters, residential and commercial furnaces, power plants, and more.
The Reference Data Challenge follows NIST's first participation in the National Day of Civic Hacking, held June 6 in which NIST invited coders from across the U.S. to play with a subset of its Standard Reference Data. The challenge also complements NIST's ongoing efforts to ensure its data and research results are publicly accessible. On July 8, 2015, NIST released a new data access plan and is asking the public for feedback to help guide its policies and procedures.
Researchers looking for information on the properties of methane at high temperatures or the isotopic composition of an element know they can rely on standard reference data from NIST.
RTI International partners with Norsk Titanium for DMD technology
July 29, 2015
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Norsk Titanium AS (NTi), Norway, announces that RTI International Metals Inc., Pittsburgh, has become a strategic investor and minority partner with the company. RTI made an investment of an undisclosed amount for strategic cooperation projects surrounding Norsk's Direct Metal Deposition technology, which is the basis for its patented process for the manufacture of premium quality titanium components.
NTi's patented plasma-arc based Direct Metal Deposition (DMD) technology is the first globally and commercially available technology of its kind. The technology enables large-scale, fully programmable means of achieving large and complex near-net-shape parts for industrial applications.
By melting wire, metal is deposited directly onto a substrate, building up a near-net-shape component with greatly reduced need for machining. This method provides substantially lower material waste, greater production flexibility, reduced costs, and greater environmental benefits than traditional production methods
NTi has achieved technology readiness level six (TRL6), which demonstrates its ability to meet stringent A&D material requirements. NTi expects to achieve technology readiness level eight (TRL8) by the fourth quarter of this year. The A&D industry is the largest and most demanding segment for titanium components. In addition, oil & gas, automotive and other industries require high quality, complex titanium component.
Norsk Titanium AS (NTi), Norway, announces that RTI International Metals Inc., Pittsburgh, has become a strategic investor and minority partner with the company.
Seco-Warwick traveling batch furnace cuts floor space for aluminum heat treating
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Seco-Warwick, Meadville, Pa., has supplied a traveling aluminum homogenizing furnace to Aisin Light Metal, Marion, Ill., as part of an expansion project. The traveling furnace features a pair of fixed load bases to support the load. When the cycle is completed on base No. 1, the furnace moves into position over the second load base and immediately begins heating a new load. The previous load is allowed to cool, then is unloaded and replaced with a new load. This can all be done before the next homogenizing cycle is completed.
A traveling furnace provides savings in floor space because the two load bases require significantly less area than h a double-ended stationary furnace with two load cars. It will help to provide more capacity to produce lightweight aluminum products to the automotive industry.
The custom-designed furnace has the capability to homogenize a wide variety of aluminum logs to meet changing production specifications, with consistent quality and equipment reliability.
Aisin Light Metals LLC (ALM), which recently celebrated ten years of operation in the United States, was the second of the three Aisin plants located in the Aisin Industrial Park in Marion. ALM, along with its sister company Aisin Keikinzoku, provides aluminum solutions to the automotive industry worldwide.
Seco-Warwick, Meadville, Pa., has supplied a traveling aluminum homogenizing furnace to Aisin Light Metal, Marion, Ill., as part of an expansion project.
Bodycote, U.K., recently opened a new greenfield facility in France, and completed another round of expansion at its site in London, Ohio. Another greenfield plant will open in 2016 in Germany. Bodycote's specialty stainless steel process (S3P) technologies are proven solutions dedicated to the treatment of stainless steel, nickel-base alloys, and cobalt-chromium alloys to improve resistance against surface wear such as galling, cavitation erosion, and abrasion.
Bodycote's S3P processes are a unique proven solution for galling in stainless steel. Essentially, S3P makes stainless steel (including martensitic and precipitation hardened stainless steel materials) fit for purpose. It offers customers a significant competitive advantage.
Many surface treatments negatively affect stainless steel's inherent corrosion resistance. Uniquely, Bodycote's S³P process imparts increased mechanical and wear properties without adversely affecting corrosion resistance, presenting engineering benefits for industries such as medical/pharmaceutical, automotive and chemical engineering.
