Abstract
Ivor Jenkins Award
The 2014 recipient of the Ivor Jenkins Award is Dr Brian James. W. Brian James is widely known and highly respected in the global PM structural parts and powder forged (PF) parts sectors. In a career of over 40 years in the UK and USA, entirely devoted to the PM industry, he has made seminal contributions in several areas. This involvement includes the development and commercialisation of new PM and PF material grades and the first ever production PF connecting rod. He has led many material development programmes at Hoeganaes Corporation in the USA.
Brian James
After graduating with BSc and PhD degrees in metallurgy from University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), UK, Brian worked at Round Oak Steel Works in the West Midlands. Here he designed manufacturing plant layout and established laboratory and quality control procedures for the production of spherical powders for use in photocopier xerography. From 1976 to 1981, he provided R&D and raw material quality control support for GKN's Powder Forging Group. This involved coordinating the activities for a pilot atomisation facility and working on fatigue testing of PF connecting rods for Porsche and other companies. In 1981, he moved to the USA, joining Hoeganaes Corporation as a senior development engineer. In 1999, he became Manager of International Technical Services, with responsibility for coordinating customer support activities in Europe, Asia, and South America. He retired from Hoeganaes Corporation at the end of June 2013.
Brian has also contributed consistently to the wider PM community. He has been extremely active for many years in PM standards development, within MPIF, ASTM and ISO committees, and has provided regular training programmes on PM technology. He has an impressive list of conference and journal publications and has been closely involved in organising conferences, most recently as technical co-chair for the 2014 PM World Congress in Orlando. He is a long standing member of the Editorial Board of this journal and will this year succeed Alan Lawley as Editor-in-Chief of the IJPM. He is a fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, ASTM International and APMI International and received the Distinguished Service to Powder Metallurgy Award from MPIF in 1993.
The Ivor Jenkins Award is made by the Particulate Engineering Committee of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining in recognition of a significant contribution that has enhanced the scientific, industrial or technological understanding of materials processing or component production using particulate materials.
High efficiency boron carbide production
A production route developed at the University of Birmingham, UK has potential to reduce energy consumption and contamination in the production of boron carbide powder. The low density and high hardness of boron carbide lead to its use in cutting tools, wear resistant parts and lightweight armour. Its high neutron absorption also makes it suitable for applications in the nuclear industry.
Conventionally, boron carbide is produced in the form of large ingots, obtained by mixing petroleum coke with boron oxide at temperatures of up to 2000°C, which are ground to fine powder for further consolidation and sintering. This energy intensive process makes boron carbide products up to 10 times more expensive than ceramics that may have inferior properties which currently dominate the hard materials market.
The project at Birmingham, led by Dr Isaac Chang of the School of Metallurgy and Materials and funded by the UK's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, has devised a method which substitutes a simple carbohydrate-based compound for the petroleum coke. The boron oxide and carbohydrate are mixed in water to form a solution which is atomised into fine droplets that form a powder on cooling. Heating the powder at a temperature below 1500°C produces fine boron carbide particles, ready for processing into final products. The raw materials are very cheap and active, thus reducing processing temperature, which with the elimination of the grinding step significantly reduces cost and energy consumption.
Tests have been conducted to demonstrate how the process can be scaled up to produce larger yields and work is continuing to further refine the process. Licensing partners are currently being sought by the University's commercialisation arm, Alta Innovations, to commercialise the technology.
Further information from Dr Isaac Chang, email
RTI acquires Dynamet Technology
RTI International Metals Inc. has acquired Dynamet Technology Inc. for $15·5m cash, plus potential future cash consideration. Based in Burlington, MA, Dynamet has expertise in titanium PM and is a supplier of near-net shape titanium and titanium alloy preforms and components to the aerospace, defence, biomedical and other sectors. The company will be included in RTI's Titanium Segment.
Near-net shape preforms and products commercialised by Dynamet Technology include missile parts and CermeTi metal matrix composite material for medical implant products. In February 2012, Dynamet Technology received qualification approval for the supply of PM Ti–6Al–4V alloy products for structural components on commercial aircraft.
RTI International Metals is a vertically integrated global supplier of advanced titanium and speciality metals products and services including advanced manufacturing, engineering, machining and forming processes including 3D printing.
Further information at www.rtiintl.com or email
Additive manufacturing update
LPW Technology Inc. will develop and provide optimised powders specifically for selective laser melting, laser metal deposition and electron beam melting, with standard powders supplied from stock and custom, and development alloys on request. Certified products are available for aerospace, and in 2014 LPW will add certification for biomedical applications to its existing quality control standards. The new office will ultimately have a laboratory with instrumentation for chemical, physical and bulk powder property testing. This facility will enable the US team to assess the suitability of metal powders for new AM applications, and to determine the feasibility of recycling used powders. Such test data support the use of PowderSolve, the company's software solution for metal powder lifecycle management.
Further information from: John D Hunter, LPW Technology, Inc., Parkway West Business Park, 511 Parkway View Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15205, USA, email
Further information from Plansee USA LLC, 115 Constitution Boulevard, Franklin, MA 02038, USA, email
Additive manufacturing standards
ASTM International Committee F42 on Additive Manufacturing Technologies has recently approved standards on test specimen data reporting and nickel alloy powder bed fusion.
ASTM F2971, ‘Practice for reporting data for test specimens prepared by additive manufacturing’, will provide means to document consistently the materials and processing history associated with specimens undergoing test or evaluation. It establishes minimum data requirements for reporting material and process data for the following purposes:
to standardise test specimen descriptions and test reports
to assist designers by standardising additive manufacturing materials databases
to aid material traceability through testing and evaluation
to capture property–parameter–performance relationships of additive manufacturing specimens to enable predictive modelling and other computation
The standard should also help to speed the completion of computerised databases and allow for better maintenance of legacy information, which will provide easier confirmation that materials and processes can be controlled from time to time and from site to site.
Two further new standards are intended for the use of purchasers or producers of additively manufactured UNS components to define requirements and ensure component properties:
ASTM F3055, ‘Specification for additive manufacturing nickel alloy (UNS N07718) with powder bed fusion’
ASTM F3056, ‘Specification for additive manufacturing nickel alloy (UNS N06625) with powder bed fusion’.
Components produced by such powder bed fusion processes as electron beam melting and laser melting are typically used in applications that require mechanical properties similar to machined forging and wrought products. These components are sometimes post-processed by machining, grinding, electrical discharge machining, or polishing to achieve desired surface finish and critical dimensions. The two standards will allow suppliers with limited internal materials and processes support to order additive manufacturing components for evaluation purposes. If a vendor wants to evaluate a new design, the part can be ordered with just the part model and either ASTM F3055 or ASTM F3056.
For further information, contact Pat Picariello, ASTM International email