Buehler, Lake Bluff, Ill., an ITW company, created the fully automatic Wilson VH3300 Vickers/Knoop hardness test system to meet virtually any requirement in the area of automated precision micro hardness testing. The VH3300 is equipped with patent-pending collision protection technology, a high-speed sample stage, and DiaMet universal testing software. The new system features a six-position test head with up to three indenters and three zoom objectives, an automated X/Y sample stage available in two sizes (180 x 180 mm as standard) and a powerful image analysis system. A high-resolution digital camera provides up to 2000× magnification. The entire system is controlled through the DiaMet hardness automation software to ensure high accuracy acquisition and analysis of test data. A wide range of test loads from 5 g to 60 kg (depending on configuration) renders the sturdy system suitable for a wide variety of applications. A purpose-designed collision protection system helps to avoid accidental damage to the indenters and objectives due to operator errors. The VH3300 hardness testing system provides a superior, high capacity testing platform capable of performing 150 make-and-measure indents per hour using the fully automated test program. For more information, visit www.buehler.com or email [email protected].
Buehler, Lake Bluff, Ill., an ITW company, created the fully automatic Wilson VH3300 Vickers/Knoop hardness test system to meet virtually any requirement in the area of automated precision micro hardness testing.
Nomination deadline for the 2016 Class of Fellows is fast approaching
November 5, 2015
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The honor of Fellow of the Society was established to provide recognition to members for distinguished contributions in the field of materials science and engineering, and to develop a broadly based forum for technical and professional leaders to serve as advisors to the Society.
If you are interested in nominating someone for this prestigious award, please contact Christine Hoover, for a unique nomination link. This link will be exclusive to you, as the nominator, and will provide you the ability to work through the nomination at different times to add content and attachments until you submit the final nomination.
The ASM Fellow Award is first and foremost an award for technical achievement and not intended to exclusively award contributions to ASM International. To the extent possible, the selection committee shall select a diverse slate of nominees from all the constituencies of ASM.
Five years of current, continuous membership in ASM International as an individual is required at the time of nomination.
Candidates for the award may be proposed by Chapters through their Executive Committee, Affiliate Societies, Regional Councils, Committees/Councils, Award Selection Committee, Awards Policy Committee, ASM Fellow or any five members of the Society.
Please be aware that the nominee, and nominator(s), must be current ASM members in good standing, or the nomination will not be accepted. If you have any question regarding the status of membership, please contact me.
The nomination is limited to ten pages, plus up to five letters of support for a total of 15 pages (this is in addition to the nomination form).
The honor of Fellow of the Society was established to provide recognition to members for distinguished contributions in the field of materials science and engineering, and to develop a broadly based forum for technical and professional leaders to serve as advisors to the Society. The deadline for submission is November 30.
ASM Handbooks Online now includes Volume 5B: Protective Organic Coatings
October 29, 2015
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ASM International, Materials Park, Ohio, recently released ASM Handbooks Online, which features the addition of ASM Handbook, Volume 5B: Protective Organic Coatings. This all new volume addresses a need for comprehensive information on organic coatings, including coating materials, surface preparation, application processes, industrial uses, and coating evaluation and analysis methods. It is an essential reference for industrial coating users, specifiers, and contractors. Industry respected authors and reviewers make this latest entry to ASM's handbook series the authoritative source for industrial coating information worldwide. See below for content included.
COATING MATERIALS:
Alkyd resins
Acrylic coatings
Epoxy resins and curatives
Polyvinylidene fluoride-based coatings technology
Fluoroethylene vinyl ether resins for high-performance coatings
Phenolic coatings
Polyester and vinyl ester coatings
Polyurethane coatings
Polyurea-based coatings
Polyaspartic coatings
Polymeric floor coatings
Powder coatings: Pipelines
Powder coatings: Other industries
Silicon-based technologies in coatings
Polysiloxane hybrid coatings
Smart coatings and nanotechnology applications in coatings
Bitumens – coal tar and asphalt coatings
Wax-based coating systems
Zinc-rich coatings
SURFACE PREPARATION AND COATING APPLICATION:
Surface preparation
Soluble salts beneath coatings
Coating application methods
Shop and field quality control and quality assurance
Worker health and environmental hazards associated with coating application and removal
Green coatings
Coating various substrates
INDUSTRIAL USES:
Pipeline industry coatings
Marine coatings
Coatings used in the nuclear industry
Bridge coatings
Transportation-railcar coatings
Guidance for the use of protective coatings in municipal potable water systems
Protective coatings for corrosion control in municipal wastewater systems
Guidelines for maintenance coating of steel structures in pulp and paper mills
Coatings for commercial structures and building deficiencies that affect performance
COATING ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION:
Estimating the cost of industrial painting projects
Coating deterioration
Coating failure analysis
Laboratory testing
Coating failures and defects
Overview of other protection methods
ASM Handbooks Online is the industry's best known and most comprehensive source of information on ferrous and nonferrous metals and materials technology. Features the complete content of 34 ASM Handbook volumes, ASM Handbook supplements, and ASM Desk Editions—more than 25,000 pages of articles, illustrations, tables, graphs, specifications, and practical examples, providing peer-reviewed, trusted information in every area of materials specialization.
Quick and advanced search features enable users to search across the complete ASM Handbook collection in seconds. Additionally, a Contents Tree provides users with an intuitive way to browse and drill down to specific handbook volumes, articles, and sections of interest. The database provides aspiring and practicing engineers with instant, anytime access to the most trusted and comprehensive materials information resource available.
"ASM Handbooks are unique and valuable resources for the engineering community," says Scott D. Henry, ASM Director of Content and Knowledge Based Solutions. "They are written and edited by volunteers, assisted by ASM staff, to provide practical, in-depth technical information that is not readily available from other sources. This latest update to ASM Handbooks Online adds a wealth of information on organic coatings to the series."
For more information, or to schedule a customized demonstration via WebEx for your organization, please contact Denise Sirochman at 440.338.5409.
ASM International, Materials Park, Ohio, recently released ASM Handbooks Online, which features the addition of ASM Handbook, Volume 5B: Protective Organic Coatings.
Unraveling structural ambiguities in lithium-rich transition metal oxides
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Using complementary microscopy and spectroscopy techniques, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), Calif., say they have solved the structure of lithium- and manganese-rich transition metal oxides, a potentially game-changing battery material and the subject of intense debate in the decade since it was discovered.
Researchers have been divided into three schools of thought on the material's structure, but a team led by Alpesh Khushalchand Shukla and Colin Ophus spent nearly four years analyzing the material and concluded that the least popular theory is in fact the correct one. This material is important because the battery capacity can potentially be doubled compared to the most commonly used Li-ion batteries today due to the extra lithium in the structure. "However, it doesn't come without problems, such as voltage fade, capacity fade, and DC resistance rise," says Shukla. "It is immensely important that we clearly understand the bulk and surface structure of the pristine material. We can't solve the problem unless we know the problem."
A viable battery with a marked increase in storage capacity would not only shake up the cell phone and laptop markets, it would also transform the market for electric vehicles (EVs). "The problem with the current lithium-ion batteries found in laptops and EVs now is that they have been pushed almost as far as they can go," says Ophus. "If we're going to ever double capacity, we need new chemistries."
Using state-of-the-art electron microscopy techniques at the National Center for Electron Microscopy (NCEM) at Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry and at SuperSTEM in the UK, researchers imaged the material at atomic resolution. Because previous studies have been ambiguous about the structure, the researchers minimized ambiguity by looking at the material from different directions, or zone axes. "Misinterpretations from electron microscopy data are possible because individual two-dimensional projections do not give you the three-dimensional information needed to solve a structure," Shukla says. "So you need to look at the sample in as many directions as you can."
Scientists have been divided on whether the material structure is single trigonal phase, double phase, or defected single monoclinic phase. The "phase" of a material refers to the arrangement of the atoms with respect to each other; Ophus, a Project Scientist at the Molecular Foundry, explains how easy it is for researchers to reach different conclusions: "The two-phase and one-phase model are very closely related. It's not like comparing an apple to an orange—it's more like comparing an orange and a grapefruit from very far away. It's hard to tell the difference between the two."
In addition to viewing the material at atomic resolution along multiple zone axes, the researchers made another important decision, that is, to view entire particles rather than just a subsection. "Imaging with very high fields of view was also critical in solving the structure," Shukla said. "If you just look at one small part you can't say that the whole particle has that structure."
Putting the evidence together, Shukla and Ophus are fairly convinced that the material is indeed defected single phase. "Our research gives strong support for the defected single-phase monoclinic model and rules out the two-phase model, at least in the range of compositions used in our study," says Ophus, whose expertise is in understanding structure using a combination of computational methods and experimental results.
"We need to know what goes on at the atomic scale in order to understand the macroscopic behavior of new emerging materials, and the advanced electron microscopes available at national facilities such as SuperSTEM or NCEM are essential in making sure their potential is fully realized," he adds.
In addition to solving the structure of the bulk material, which has been studied by other research groups, they also solved the surface structure, which is different from the bulk and consists of just a few layers of atoms on select crystallographic facets. "The intercalation of lithium starts at the surface, so understanding the surface of the pristine material is very important," Shukla says.
On top of the STEM (scanning transmission electron microscopy) imaging that they used for the bulk, they had to use additional techniques to solve the surface, including EELS (electron energy loss spectroscopy) and XEDS (x-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy). "We show for the first time which surface structure occurs, how thick it is, how it's oriented in relation to the bulk, and in particular on what facets the surface phase does and doesn't exist," Ophus says.
An important part of the study was the quantity and quality of the samples studied. They started with lab-made samples. They used a molten-salt method that produces high-quality discrete primary particles that are impurity-free, making them ideal candidates for performing fundamental characterization. Taking a conservative approach, the researchers also decided to procure and analyze two commercial samples from two different companies.
"We could have finished the paper a year earlier, but because there was so much controversy we wanted to make sure we didn't leave any stone unturned," says Shukla. In the end, it took nearly four years to complete the research. Ophus calls it a "tour de force of microscopy" because of its thoroughness.
Image caption — The cube on the right represents the structure of lithium- and manganese- rich transition metal oxides. The models on the left show the structure from three different directions, which correspond to the STEM images of the cube.
Using complementary microscopy and spectroscopy techniques, researchers at say they have solved the structure of lithium- and manganese-rich transition metal oxides.
NMSU's UAS FTC provides direct access to more than 15,000 m2 of airspace, and was the first civil UAS test facility that provided direct, available access to restricted airspace—a must for testing developmental aircraft or multi-aircraft scenarios. Henry Cathey, interim deputy director of NMSU's Physical Science Laboratory, was honored at NMSU's Scholarly Excellence Rally Friday, Oct. 9.
"The Flight Test Center in Las Cruces has been operating for a number of years, and it's not only a unique resource for the state of New Mexico, but it is a unique resource for the entire country," Cathey says. "It's state-of-the-art, cutting-edge, and it's very exciting that New Mexico is leading the way in this area."
In May 2015, the FAA announced that the Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence (ASSURE) would operate a new National Center of Excellence for UAS. NMSU is a core member-university on a team, which is comprised of 15 universities and six affiliates.
As a core university of ASSURE, NMSU is helping lead the partnership of academic and industry members that will begin a new era of commercial unmanned aircraft research, development and integration into the nation's airspace. Dallas Brooks, NMSU UAS research and development strategic manager, is the principle investigator on the ASSURE project and co-chairs the Federal UAS Science and Research Panel, which oversees and coordinates UAS research conducted by the FAA, NASA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security.
The center of excellence will supply research to the FAA and UAS industry to increase the potential uses of unmanned systems with minimal changes to the current system regulating manned aircraft. The center of excellence research areas include detect and avoid technology; low-altitude operations safety; control and communications; spectrum management; human factors; compatibility with air traffic control operations; and training and certification of UAS pilots and other crewmembers.
"We are supporting and trying to make the skies safer for using things like UAS or unmanned aircraft systems in the national airspace," Cathey says. "We have been tasked to look at detect and avoid technology on how we can integrate things from small UAS up to things with a 15- to 20-foot wingspan into national airspace safely.
"The detect and avoid research area focuses on issues related to the detection of potential threats to remain well clear and avoid collisions. It explores sensors, the data produced from sensors, the management and use of that data, and the operational outcome that is considered safe and acceptable," he said.
In this research area, NMSU is evaluating the requirements for an airborne or ground-based Detect and Avoid system compatible with small UAS (55 pounds and less) operating in limited portions of the National Air Space to comply with the regulations and not increase the risk to other aircraft or people on the ground, beyond what is currently in effect. Additionally, NMSU is accessing the requirements for software along with what are the most feasible airborne or ground-based sensors.
ASSURE will form teams between its member universities, government agencies and industry partners to address both government and commercial UAS challenges. "Each of those universities has specific skills and abilities, and the idea is to marry all of the technical expertise to provide real research answers for flight safety in the National Air Space," Cathey said.
Established in 2007, the New Mexico State University Physical Science Laboratory’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Test Center is the first of its kind.
Lawrence E. Brown, executive director of LIFT—Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow, welcomed the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI) as the two organizations confirmed that IACMI will open a scale-up facility at LIFT's headquarters in Detroit.
The facility will support production-scale composite materials development focused on vehicle lightweighting in collaboration with automotive companies. IACMI and LIFT are both part of President Barack Obama's National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) initiative.
The composites scale-up facility will be run by Michigan State University, which leads IACMI's vehicle technology area in Detroit. LIFT is located at a previously abandoned and distressed facility in Corktown, the oldest neighborhood in Detroit. The 100,000 ft2 facility has been extensively renovated by LIFT through collaborative efforts with Michigan Economic Development Corp., The New Economy Initiative, and Mayor Mike Duggan's office.
"Taking weight out of vehicles will require different approaches; we are focused on metals and IACMI is focused on composites," says Brown. "But we are both working toward the same goal with many of the same industry partners, so it only makes sense for us to be physically together. All of the national institutes are based on collaborations, and we expect this one to be particularly strong."
At a recent event in Detroit, Vice President Joe Biden echoed Brown's lightweighting charge, saying, "Lightweighting is critical to our future. We want to own the 21st century in innovation, and composites are a big part of that goal. That's why this administration is making a $40 million investment in the Composites Institute (IACMI) co-locating in a facility in Detroit."
Michigan has more than 300 industrial technical centers related to automotive technology and conducts more than 70% of U.S. automotive research and development. "IACMI's technology areas are strategically located in America's manufacturing heartland to serve industry needs," says Craig Blue, IACMI's CEO. "Co-locating with LIFT in the Motor City reinforces our commitment to collaboration through partnerships that enhance the entire automotive ecosystem."
Both IACMI and LIFT are identifying applications for lighter materials in next generation vehicles, IACMI via advanced composites and LIFT via lightweight metals. Locating in the same facility provides a unique opportunity for collaboration between NNMI institutes and the transportation industry, which have identified the need of lightweight materials to meet goals for fuel efficiency, safety, and performance.
Support of this co-location is evidenced by numerous federal, state, industry, and local commitments to the city of Detroit and this shared facility. Approximately $12 million in Federal funding will come to Detroit for cost-shared development projects; the state of Michigan has committed $15 million for equipment and staffing; industrial support is valued at $18 million; and the city of Detroit is supporting IACMI's efforts to establish the vehicle scale-up facility.
Several hundred new jobs in the industrial sector are expected as a result of the commercialization successes facilitated by this pilot-scale facility managed by IACMI.
One Minute Mentor: Heat Treatment Applied to Tool Steels
September 30, 2015
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After hot forming, tool steel usually is exposed to a heat treatment process done to produce a low-hardness condition. Low hardness is important for machining, but the treatment also should promote a homogeneous microstructure, usually referred to as the annealed condition. The graph shows the process condition as a function of time, temperature, and phase transformation.
Volume 4D, Heat Treating of Irons and Steels -> Heat Treating of Carbon and Low-Alloy Steels -> Introduction to Heat Treating of Tool Steels -> Heat Treatment Applied to Tool Steels
New technique could make cement manufacturing carbon-neutral
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Concrete is found all over cities and stretches across the land in a vast network of highways. It's so ubiquitous that most of us take it for granted, but many aren't aware that concrete's key ingredient, ordinary portland cement, is a major producer of greenhouse gases.
Each year, manufacturers produce around 5 billion tons of portland cement—the gray powder that mixes with water to form the "glue" that holds concrete together. That's nearly three-quarters of a ton for every person on Earth. For every ton of cement produced, the process creates approximately a ton of carbon dioxide, all of which accounts for roughly 7% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions.
And with demand increasing every year—especially in the developing world, which uses much more portland cement than the U.S. does—scientists are determined to lessen the growing environmental impact of portland cement production. One of those scientists is Gaurav Sant of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, who recently completed research that could eventually lead to methods of cement production that give off no carbon dioxide, the gas that composes 82% of greenhouse gases.
Sant, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and UCLA's Edward K. and Linda L. Rice professor of materials science, found that carbon dioxide released during cement manufacture could be captured and reused.
"The reason we have been able to sustain global development has been our ability to produce portland cement at the volumes we have, and we will need to continue to do so," Sant says. "But the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere creates significant environmental stress. So it raises the question of whether we can reuse that carbon dioxide to produce a building material."
During cement manufacturing, there are two steps responsible for carbon emissions. One is calcination, when limestone, the raw material most used to produce cement, is heated to about 750°C. That process separates limestone into a corrosive, unstable solid—calcium oxide, or lime—and carbon dioxide gas. When lime is combined with water, a process called slaking, it forms a more stable compound called calcium hydroxide.
And the major compound in portland cement is tricalcium silicate, which hardens like stone when it is combined with water. Tricalcium silicate is produced by combining lime with siliceous sand and heating the mixture to 1500°C. Of the total carbon dioxide emitted in cement manufacturing, 65 percent is released when the limestone is calcined and 35% is given off by the fuel burned to heat the tricalcium silicate compound.
But Sant and his team show that the carbon dioxide given off during calcination can be captured and recombined with calcium hydroxide to recreate limestone—creating a cycle in which no carbon dioxide is released into the air. In addition, about 50% less heat is needed throughout the production cycle, since no additional heat is required to ensure the formation of tricalcium silicate.
Sant said the method is analogous to how limestone cementation occurs in nature, where limestone forms the tough exoskeletons of coral, mollusks and seashells, and when microbes form limestone that cements grains of sand together.
Although scientists had examined this idea previously, Sant said it had never been demonstrated before with a view to carbon dioxide-neutral cement production—and that it actually worked faster than he and his colleagues expected. The cycle took just three hours to complete, compared with the more than 28 days needed for portland cement to react with water to near completion and reach its final hardest consistency. The successful sample was very small, as required by laboratory conditions. But Sant says now that the process has been proven, it could, in time, be scaled up to production levels.
If cement manufacturers continue to operate as they currently do, and if proposed carbon taxes in the U.S. and other nations are eventually enacted, cement production would be much more expensive than it is now. Were that to happen, a new method for producing cement with little or no environmental impact would be of even greater interest, Sant says.
The study's co-authors were Mathieu Bauchy, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, Magdalena Balonis, a research scientist, postdoctoral scholars Kirk Vance and Isabella Pignatelli, and doctoral scholar Gabriel Falzone, all of UCLA.
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and was conducted in the Laboratory for the Chemistry of Construction Materials in the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Electron Imaging Center for Nanomachines at the California NanoSystems Institute, and the Molecular Instrumentation Center in UCLA's department of chemistry and biochemistry.
Image caption — For every ton of cement produced, the process creates approximately a ton of carbon dioxide, all of which accounts for roughly 7 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions.
Advancing development of thermal manufacturing technologies
September 24, 2015
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A new roadmap outlines a near-term strategy for the accelerated development and implementation of advanced technologies across the many industries that rely on thermal manufacturing, which collectively employ more than 5.4 million people and generate almost $3 trillion in economic activity. By providing specific actions for a more coordinated cross-sector approach to advanced thermal manufacturing in the next five years, this roadmap aims to enable the more than 100,000 businesses involved in and impacted by thermal manufacturing—97% of which are small and medium-sized companies—to improve the efficiency of their operations as well as the performance of the U.S. manufacturing sector as a whole.
Developed by the Thermal Manufacturing Industries Advanced Technology Consortium (TMI ATC) initiative under the leadership of ASM International, Materials Park, Ohio, and through funding from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, Md., Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia (AMTech) program, Advancing Thermal Manufacturing: A Technology Roadmap to 2020 identifies common barriers that currently constrain the use of advanced technologies in thermal manufacturing—including limitations of current technologies and processes as well as widespread non-technical issues related to workforce development and training.
"We were very pleased to be able to bring together different constituencies to develop this first roadmap in the thermal manufacturing area", says Terry Mosier, Managing Director of ASM International.
To address these common barriers, the roadmap offers a two-fold strategy that combines focused technology development with activities designed to stimulate and support technology implementation. The roadmap identifies 50 activities and seven detailed action plans to accelerate the development, adaptation, and implementation of advanced technologies throughout the thermal manufacturing community in the next five years.
The technology development activities identified in the roadmap aim to enhance the development and adaptation of heating methods and materials for thermal manufacturing equipment and products as well as improve the understanding, prediction, monitoring, and control of thermal manufacturing processes.
The technology implementation activities identified in the roadmap focus on stimulating the widespread acceptance and adoption of advanced technologies throughout the thermal manufacturing community to ensure that even small and medium-sized companies with limited resources can effectively implement these technologies in their operations.
Implementation of this roadmap's critical actions and priority action plans will be led by the Metal Processing Institute (MPI) at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Mass., in conjunction with ASM International. Together, these organizations will engage their diverse membership bases—including members from academia, national laboratories, and industry—to catalyze action in this nationally critical area.
"The increased development and implementation of advanced technologies can ultimately better position the U.S. thermal manufacturing in the global economy," says Diran Apelian, MPI Director. "This roadmap provides a compelling path forward that should be of interest to all stakeholders."
