The near-net-shape manufacturing of affordable titanium components for the M777 lightweight howitzer

Abstract

Titanium Research SummaryThe U.S. Marines ' and U.S. Army's next-generation, titanium-intensive M777 howitzer offers reduced weight, increased mobility, and improved survivability over its aging, M198 steel-based predecessor. The National Center for Excellence in Metalworking Technology (NCEMT), operated by Concurrent Technologies Corporation, is helping to meet M777 program goals for cost, performance, and production schedule by developing near-net-shape manufacturing routes for traditionally machined and welded components. Under two projects sponsored by the Navy Manufacturing Technology Program, the NCEMT has developed investment cast spade and saddle components as well as flowformed tubes and forged bell housings. This paper summarizes the results of the two ongoing projects.

Dental Implant Systems

“…NSS technologies such as flow-forming (FF), superplastic forming (SPF), casting, forging, powder metallurgy (P/M) methods, three-dimensional laser deposition, and plasma arc deposition (PAD) have been explored for potential use in tubular geometries and other shapes of varying complexity. It appears that the reduction in cost of a given titanium product will be maximized by achieving improvements in all of the manufacturing steps, from extraction to finishin [ 411 ].…”

Development of the Fray-Farthing-Chen Cambridge Process: Towards the Sustainable Production of Titanium and Its Alloys

“…8 Due to the relatively low density of titanium, some alloying elements tend to segregate and multi-step remelting is necessary to achieve full homogenisation of the final alloys at high costs. Furthermore, the fabrication of titanium alloys in complex shapes increases both the waste and cost and calls for creative manufacturing techniques such as additive manufacturing, [24][25][26] nearnet-shape casting, 27 spark plasma sintering (SPS), 28 and metal injection moulding. 29 Most of these advanced techniques are based on powder metallurgy, 30,31 and powder production requires sophisticated pulverisation and spheroidisation processes, which in turn adds extra costs to the final products.…”

Near net shape manufacturing of metal: A review of approaches and their evolutions

“…36,52,53,55,80 The process innovation's classification is dominated by work on forging/forming 33,35,38,39,61,76,81,82 and additive layer manufacturing 36,40,52,53,69 processes, although a few articles investigate novel powder technologies 55,75 and casting 80 processes. The majority of the papers in this category present case studies 35,38,53,76,[80][81][82] and reviews, 33,36,39,40 although some experimental investigation are reported for powder technologies 55,75 and additive layer manufacturing. 52,69 The applications motivating work in this area are the forging of gears, 33,38,76 similar high performance automotive components 35,81,82 (i.e.…”

“…Overview of the NNS research: process innovation, process design, product design, material characterization, differential analysis, applied framework. Groenbaek and Birker, 76 Lewis et al, 52 Milewski et al, 53 Klug et al, 80 Behrens et al, 81 Vilotić et al, 82 Dean, 38 and Shi et al 61 Li, 18 Hirt et al, 68 Kim et al, 22 Chitkara and Bhutta, 8 Chitkara and Kim, 10 Chitkara and Bhutta, 9 Chitkara and Kim, 11 Netto et al, 12 Jeon and Kim, 14 Siegert et al, 34 Kapranos et al, 44 Kang et al, 43 Qi et al, 54 Taminger and Hafley, 57 Dirba et al 59 and Mamalis et al 20 Takemasu et al, 19 Tomov and Gagov, 15 Chu et al, 25 De Sam Lazaro et al, 26 Yin et al, 28 Konak et al 29 and Medellin et al 30 Blackwell and Wisbey, 73 Kottman et al, 74 Okada et al, 21 Yamamoto et al, 41 Curle, 46 Kim et al, 22 Arribas et al, 49 Qi et al, 51 Krishna et al 56 and Julien and Després 62 Tateno, 3 Bhatkal and…”