Page 40 - MetalForming Magazine May 2022

only a small piece of that equation, primarily for local production of pro- totypes and low-volume products. To create a serious impact in reshoring will require not only a manufacturing process that can scale, but also requires addressing the triple threat of climate change, energy and soaring costs.
James DeMuth, co-founder and CEO of Seurat Technologies, will unpack the realities of all of this and explain how, for the first time, AM can be cost-com- petitive with traditional fabrication and enable an attractive environment for reshoring in every way.
Solid State 3D Printing for Aerospace; Large-Scale Metal-AM and Hybrid Systems
The evolution of technology is such that there is always a push to increase efficiency. No industry pushes the enve- lope more than aerospace. There is a relentless push for efficiency of mass, efficiency of volume and efficiency of materials. Ultrasonic Additive Manu- facturing (UAM), a 3D metal printing technology, uses ultrasonic energy and pressure to produce metallurgical bonds between layers of metal foils near room temperature. The low-heat nature of the bond allows for novel designs that can expand the design space for aerospace components.
The process receives a deep dive from presenter Mark Norfolk, president of Fabrisonic LLC, who will provide an overview of aerospace applications including 3D-printed heat exchangers, embedded electronics and multi-mate- rial solutions.
Following Norfolk’s presentation is a talk on qualification of metal-AM processes, delivered by Ron Aman, Ph.D., AM senior technology leader at EWI, who has nearly 20 years of metal- AM research and development expe- rience at universities, research insti- tutes and material suppliers.
“The installation qualification of equipment, operator qualification and production qualification are all required to establish process capability
for a particular piece of equipment, operator and facility,” Aman explains. “Once this process capability is estab- lished, material-based qualification is often necessary with multiple build and testing cycles required to establish material-property baseline data. Mate- rial qualification is usually specific to equipment serial numbers and not transferable across production equip- ment. Finally, part-qualification pro- cedures can require the production of multiple target parts for nondestructive and destructive testing to validate material-qualification applicability for the specific geometry. Most often this qualification process establishes a fixed manufacturing flow with frozen param- eter bands which must be adhered to, or requalification would be required.”
Aman will, during his presentation, explain the necessity of specifying qual- ification to equipment serial numbers, control software versions, material sup- pliers (even down to specific atomizers for raw materials) and geometry is a testament to the inherent variability observed across AM.
“Standards are being developed to support the supply-chain handling of this variability,” he adds, “but the fun- damental variability within and across platforms will continue to cause qual- ification challenges.”
EWI is addressing the metal-AM qualification challenge through several efforts: 1) development and demon- stration of robust material qualifica- tion procedures, 2) machine-health quantification and monitoring tools, and 3) in-process monitoring tools for identifying and reducing process vari- ability. These efforts are working toward a thermal history and machine health monitoring toolset for estab- lishing broader qualification of metal- AM parts.
Robotics, Intelligent Systems, and their Impact on Metal AM
Metal AM is seeing major growth in adoption by industry, and new systems are being developed at rapid pace. Oak
Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF) is working to create new metal- AM capabilities through computation, characterization and novel systems development.
In a keynote presentation provided by Amy Elliott, group leader for robotics and intelligent systems, at the ORNL manufacturing demonstration facility, conference attendees will learn about the various systems being researched and developed at ORNL along with the advanced characterization capabilities that enable each technology.
Specifically, hybrid systems are being developed, including the MedUSA system—a large-scale robot- ic-welding system that also incorpo- rates subtractive manufacturing. And, other hybrid systems will be discussed as well.
Also on the agenda: a talk titled Large Format Metal Additive Manu- facturing for Army Ground Vehicle Sys- tems. Presenter Rob Carter, a member of the ADDvisor Services Team at Barnes Group Advisors, notes:
“Metal AM is starting to impact sup- ply chains as the technology matures and standards are increasing in num- ber. There is ample opportunity within the defense industrial base to use AM to improve readiness by shortening supply times and expanding the supply base to produce parts. One limitation to many of the AM processes is size— even with the maturation of the tech- nology the build volumes are insuffi- cient (>1 m3) for many defense applications.”
Carter will describe a recent effort to address this limitation is the jointless hull program, where the U.S. Army Ground Vehicle Systems Center is estab- lishing a “vehicle-class” system at the Rock Island Arsenal. The system, being built by MELD, Ingersoll and Siemens, will have a build volume of 20 by 30 by 12 ft. He’ll provide details on the tech- nical capabilities being developed and target applications, both within and outside of the defense sector.
EXPERIENCE AND TECH TOUR
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