Designfax weekly eMagazine

Subscribe Today!

Archives

View Archives

Partners

Manufacturing Center
Product Spotlight

Modern Applications News
Metalworking Ideas For
Today's Job Shops

Tooling and Production
Strategies for large
metalworking plants

hyperMILL 2024 CAD/CAM software suite

OPEN MIND Technologies has introduced its latest hyperMILL 2024 CAD/CAM software suite, which includes a range of powerful enhancements to its core toolpath capabilities, as well as new functionality for increased NC programming efficiency in applications ranging from 2.5D machining to 5-axis milling. New and enhanced capabilities include: Optimized Deep Hole Drilling, a new algorithm for 3- and 5-axis Rest Machining, an enhanced path layout for the 3D Plane Machining cycle, better error detection, and much more.
Learn more.

One-part epoxy changes from red to clear under UV

Master Bond UV15RCL is a low-viscosity, cationic-type UV-curing system with a special color-changing feature. The red material changes to clear once exposed to UV light, indicating that there is UV light access across the adhesive material. Although this change in color from red to clear does not indicate a full cure, it does confirm that the UV light has reached the polymer. This epoxy is an excellent electrical insulator. UV15RCL adheres well to metals, glass, ceramics, and many plastics, including acrylics and polycarbonates.
Learn more.

SPIROL Press-N-Lok™ Pin for plastic housings

The Press-N-Lok™ Pin was designed to permanently retain two plastic components to each other. As the pin is inserted, the plastic backfills into the area around the two opposing barbs, resulting in maximum retention. Assembly time is quicker, and it requires lower assembly equipment costs compared to screws and adhesives -- just Press-N-Lok™!
Learn more about the new Press-N-Lok™ Pin.

Why hybrid bearings are becoming the new industry standard

A combination of steel outer and inner rings with ceramic balls or rollers is giving hybrid bearings unique properties, making them suitable for use in a wide range of modern applications. SKF hybrid bearings make use of silicon nitride (twice as hard as bearing steel) rolling elements and are available as ball bearings, cylindrical roller bearings, and in custom designs. From electric erosion prevention to friction reduction and extended maintenance intervals, learn all about next-gen hybrid bearings.
Read the SKF technical article.

3M and Ansys train engineers on simulating adhesives

Ansys and 3M have created an advanced simulation training program enabling engineers to enhance the design and sustainability of their products when using tapes and adhesives as part of the design. Simulation enables engineers to validate engineering decisions when analyzing advanced polymeric materials -- especially when bonding components made of different materials. Understand the behavior of adhesives under real-world conditions for accurate modeling and design.
Read this informative Ansys blog.

New FATH T-slotted rail components in black from AutomationDirect

Automation-Direct has added a wide assortment of black-colored FATH T-slotted hardware components to match their SureFrame black anodized T-slotted rails, including: cube connectors (2D and 3D) and angle connectors, joining plates of many types, brackets, and pivot joints. Also included are foot consoles, linear bearings in silver and black, cam lever brakes, and L-handle brakes. FATH T-slotted hardware components are easy to install, allow for numerous T-slotted structure configurations, and have a 1-year warranty against defects.
Learn more.

Weird stuff: Moon dust simulant for 3D printing

Crafted from a lunar regolith simulant, Basalt Moon Dust Filamet™ (not a typo) available from The Virtual Foundry closely mirrors the makeup of lunar regolith found in mare regions of the Moon. It enables users with standard fused filament fabrication (FFF) 3D printers to print with unparalleled realism. Try out your ideas before you go for that big space contract, or help your kid get an A on that special science project.
Learn more.

Break the mold with custom injection molding by Rogan

With 90 years of industry experience, Rogan Corporation possesses the expertise to deliver custom injection molding solutions that set businesses apart. As a low-cost, high-volume solution, injection molding is the most widely used plastics manufacturing process. Rogan processes include single-shot, two-shot, overmolding, and assembly. Elevate your parts with secondary operations: drilling and tapping, hot stamping, special finishes, punch press, gluing, painting, and more.
Learn more.

World's first current-carrying fastening technology

PEM^® eConnect™ current-carrying pins from Penn-Engineering provide superior electrical connections in applications that demand high performance from internal components, such as automotive electronics. This first-to-market tech provides repeatable, consistent electrical joints and superior installation unmatched by traditional fastening methods. Features include quick and secure automated installation, no hot spots or poor conductivity, and captivation options that include self-clinching and broaching styles.
Learn more about eConnect pins.

New interactive digital catalog from EXAIR

EXAIR's latest catalog offers readers an incredible source of innovative solutions for common industrial problems like conveying, cooling, cleaning, blowoff, drying, coating, and static buildup. This fully digital and interactive version of Catalog 35 is designed for easy browsing and added accessibility. Customers can view, download, print, and save either the full catalog or specific pages and sections. EXAIR products are designed to conserve compressed air and increase personnel safety in the process. Loaded with useful information.
Check out EXAIR's online catalog.

5 cost-saving design tips for CNC machining

Make sure your parts meet expectations the first time around. Xometry's director of application engineering, Greg Paulsen, presents five expert tips for cutting costs when designing custom CNC machined parts. This video covers corners and radii, designing for deep pockets, thread depths, thin walls, and more. Always excellent info from Paulsen at Xometry.
View the video.

What can you secure with a retaining ring? 20 examples

From the watch dial on your wrist to a wind turbine, no application is too small or too big for a Smalley retaining ring to secure. Light to heavy-duty loads? Carbon steel to exotic materials? No problem. See how retaining rings are used in slip clutches, bike locks, hip replacements, and even the Louvre Pyramid.
See the Smalley design applications.

Load fasteners with integrated RFID

A crane, rope, or chain may be required when something needs lifting -- plus anchoring points on the load. JW Winco offers a wide range of solutions to fasten the load securely, including: lifting eye bolts and rings (with or without rotation), eye rings with ball bearings, threaded lifting pins, shackles, lifting points for welding, and more. Some, such as the GN 581 Safety Swivel Lifting Eye Bolts, even have integrated RFID tags to clearly identify specific lifting points during wear and safety inspections and manage them digitally and without system interruption.
Learn more.

Couplings solve misalignments more precisely with targeted center designs

ALS Couplings from Miki Pulley feature a simplistic, three-piece construction and are available in three different types for more precisely handling parallel, angular, or axial misalignment applications. The key feature of this coupling design is its center element. Each of the three models has a center member that has a unique and durable material and shape. Also called a "spider," the center is designed to address and resolve the type of misalignment targeted. Ideal for unidirectional continuous movement or rapid bidirectional motion.
Learn more.

What is 3D-MID? Molded parts with integrated electronics from HARTING

3D-MID (three-dimensional mechatronic integrated devices) technology combines electronic and mechanical functionalities into a single, 3D component. It replaces the traditional printed circuit board and opens up many new opportunities. It takes injection-molded parts and uses laser-direct structuring to etch areas of conductor structures, which are filled with a copper plating process to create very precise electronic circuits. HARTING, the technology's developer, says it's "Like a PCB, but 3D." Tons of possibilities.
View the video.

Ames Laboratory perfecting metal powders for manufacturing

Iver Anderson and Emma White, metallurgists at Ames Laboratory, like to show off samples of metal powders encapsulated in custom-made hourglasses to visitors. Dull gray, the powders are barely remarkable in and of themselves, let alone in comparison to each other.

That is, until the hourglasses are flipped, and observers can compare how the powders flow through the narrow necks of glass. The powder created by traditional manufacturing methods doesn't, exactly. It starts and trickles and stops. It needs shaking and manipulating to get through. The other powder, produced at the laboratory's high-pressure gas atomization facility, pulses smoothly through the hourglass of its own accord.

Iver Anderson (left) and Emma White explain the metal powders to Kurt Kovarik, a staffer to U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley. [Credit: Ames Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy]

 

 

It's all because of the smooth spherical particles produced by Ames Laboratory's gas atomization method, an improvement over traditionally manufactured powders.

"You can see they're chunky, randomly sized, with rough edges," said White of the traditionally made powder particles, comparing scanning electron microscope images of the two. "They don't flow past each other, and that's going to require a pulsing mechanism or an agitator in the manufacturing process. That's going to cost the manufacturer more in energy to run their production line."

It's only one of the many benefits of powders created by the gas atomization process, which has garnered the laboratory at least 16 patents over the last two decades, and created a spin-off company, IPAT, recently acquired by Praxair, which exclusively licenses Ames Laboratory's titanium atomization patents and is racing to introduce it to an eager marketplace.

Splitting liquid into droplets
Gas atomization is a powder production method that uses high-pressure gas flow to disintegrate molten metal into particles. In the Metals Development building at the Ames Laboratory, Anderson, a senior metallurgist, and White, a post-doctoral researcher, are able to produce experimental quantities of powder with the laboratory's experimental apparatus, about half of a liter volume per production run. Another, larger gas-atomizer at the ISU Applied Science Center can produce around 3 liters.

The basic operation is the same in both. Metal is melted by an induction furnace and held in a crucible with a stoppered opening in the bottom. When the stopper is lifted, the metal flows through a specially designed pour tube into an atomization nozzle (also unique to Ames Laboratory) that focuses a number of round-hole gas jets on the molten metal in a tight pattern. The individual jets of gas -- argon, nitrogen, or helium depending on the test run -- knit together to form a supersonic "curtain" that flows directly across the liquid metal flow direction and forces the melt to couple directly with the high kinetic energy of the supersonic gas flow, creating a controlled droplet spray.

A magnified image of a gas-atomized particle. [Credit: Ames Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy]

 

 

"This energetic coupling happens because the gas curtain creates a suction that pulls the melt into the atomization zone and simultaneously forces an upward-directed gas counter-flow to form that splits the liquid as though there was an umbrella stuck underneath it and makes it flow sideways, across to the outer edge of that round nozzle," said Anderson. "So it gets presented to the gas as a thin film that is forced by the gas to turn in the gas flow direction so it can shear past the surface of that film, and strip off waves of liquid that break at their crest to form droplets.

"It's the same phenomenon you can see on the surface of a pond hit with a gust of wind. You see small ripples and a spray of water come off that gust."

Once the droplets form, they solidify rapidly as they fall through the spray chamber and are cooled by additional gas halos. The resulting powder particles are separated from the combined gas flow and settle into two powder collector cans that are connected to the end of the spray chamber. The cleaned inert process gas exits through two types of final filter devices and is exhausted from the lab.

Advantages
Ames Laboratory's gas atomization method produces powders that are customizable, consistently sized, and smoothly spherical. The advantages of a perfectly formed powder are multiple. Besides the advantage of smooth powder flow already mentioned, the individual round particles have little internal porosity and pack together optimally in bulk. Both qualities reduce dead air space and improve the quality of parts produced using these powders.

Using gas atomization, Ames Laboratory has produced powders of iron, aluminum, nickel, copper, tin, magnesium, and various other metals and alloys, in addition to titanium, one of its key research accomplishments.

"The titanium industry is extremely interested in powder metallurgy and final-shape consolidation methods," said White. "Titanium is expensive, and the large amount of waste titanium produced during machining cast parts into final shapes significantly increases their costs. They see advances in powder metallurgy as an effective cost-control strategy by making parts into near-final shapes and minimizing waste titanium."

The powders produced by this method have also been used in the production of stronger alnico (aluminum, nickel, cobalt, and iron) permanent magnets, and in the production of an experimental power transmission cable fabricated out of an aluminum and calcium composite.

And the possibilities of these metal powders don't just look to the future, but may also redeem materials from the past that had been abandoned by researchers and industry as impossible to work with.

"You can create an alloy with fantastic properties, but if you can't make something useful out of it, it will never get off the lab bench. This method enables us to revisit materials that have been around a long time, give them a second chance, and find new potential applications for them," said Anderson.

Impossible shapes out of incredible alloys
Ames Laboratory is seeking to expand its powder production capabilities beyond research capacity, with the goal of being able to produce up to 200 lb of powder in one production run.

At that scale, new opportunities for research are possible, explained Anderson and White. Large batches provide sufficient sample amounts for shared research projects among multiple national laboratories and industry partners.

With new 3D-printing and additive manufacturing capabilities expanding rapidly, Ames Laboratory will be able to position itself as a provider of custom metal powders for these research areas, continuing to fine-tune the abilities of the gas atomization process.

All is a natural progression of the research goals that Anderson has worked toward for decades. "The ability to make impossible shapes out of incredible alloys is my mission in life. I want to work on ways to get this done," he said.

Ames Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science national laboratory operated by Iowa State University.

Source: Ames Laboratory

Published February 2017

Rate this article