Wallwork Heat Treating awarded Innovate UK funding to harden titanium for implants

September 27, 2017
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Wallwork Cambridge, England, has been awarded funding from Innovate UK, the government-backed sponsor of breakthrough technologies, to research the medical applications of its aircraft titanium bearing hardening technology for human implants. The technology combines its expertise in making landing gear bearings lighter and stronger, with the Agilliant process to contain tissue-damaging ion leakage and provide active protection against post-operative infection.

The company currently applies a duplex process on titanium landing gear bearings for the Airbus 350 and 380 passenger jets.

"The duplex coating process opens the way for a new generation of light, strong, safer, and more durable titanium implants," says Dr. Jonathan Housden. "The program has promise as an enabling technology that may lead to customized implants made by additive manufacturing. These will be more comfortable for the patient with fewer complications caused by post-operative infection and mechanical wear."

Early accelerated life testing to simulate years of use suggest that the joints will, in many cases, outlive the patient. It is hoped that this will lead to a $400 million annual saving for the NHS by allowing more efficient use of orthopedic resources, because rework of failed or compromised treatments will be avoided. The first human trials may be in four years with full clinical adoption in seven to ten years.

www.Wallworkht.co.uk

Ames Lab hot-shot pour tube produces titanium powder ten times more efficiently

September 6, 2017
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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.

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.

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.

"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."

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."

In congratulating Dr. Anderson and his team, Ames Lab Director Adam Schwartz said the award demonstrates Ames Lab's commitment to the Department of Energy's mission of transferring technologies to the marketplace for the benefit of the American taxpayer. "We are very proud to join Iver and his team in celebrating this technological success," he added, "and we look forward to many anticipated future successes."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXNqNdrO44A