Partnership for accelerated insertion of new technology: case study for thermal spray technology

Abstract

Introduction: Materials and manufacturing innovation in complex engineering systems such as those in aerospace, energy, heavy machinery is extremely challenging as they typically involve lengthy and costly development cycles and generally follow stringent guidelines and defined road maps. Incorporating academic science and disruptive advances into this product development cycle is challenging. Effective partnerships via integrated academic-industry study groups and joint value proposition of scientific advances and models, can accelerate insertion of new knowledge/technologies in this class of materials and manufacturing ecosystems. Case Description: This paper describes such a partnership and integration framework through exemplary case studies in thermal spray materials processing. Thermal spray is a platform materials manufacturing technology enabling deposition of advanced coatings for wide range of materials applications in aerospace, energy, heavy machinery, electronics and biomedical devices. It is a complex process involving many facets of engineering sciences including thermo-fluids, heat transfer, materials science and mechanics, incorporating non-equilibrium phenomena and multi-scale structure/behavior. The required breadth and depth of process and materials knowledge for advancing the technology is very significant, resulting in lengthy, trial and error based developments. Specific case studies illustrate knowledge advancement through science and models, development of measurement tools and simulations, along with industrial demonstration studies, addressing the utility in the manufacturing enterprise. Together, they represent a framework for establishing integrated computational and experimental materials engineering concepts and serve as a model ecosystem for accelerating innovation in complex industrial manufacturing processes.

A Novel Manufacturing Route for Automobile Parts through Two-Wire-Arc Thermal Spray Process

“…This concept has been developed with the advanced metal thermal spray technology and the spray forming has special superiority in rapid tooling and in forming thin-walled parts. In present times, thermal spray technology is well developed in terms of materials manufacturing technology and allows to deposit different materials for a wide range of application from aerospace to biomedical devices [1][2]. In the two-wire arc spray process, the thermal energy is used in melting the coating wires, these coating wires are electrically conductive and are motor feed through the nozzle gun, at the tip of the nozzle gun, the wires create arc temperature of over 6000°C.…”