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A D V A N C E D
M A T E R I A L S
&
P R O C E S S E S |
A P R I L
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PROCESS TECHNOLOGY
BRIEFS
Aleris, Cleveland, offers a new 7017 aluminum alloy in North America for commercial plate and defense uses. After extensive
review and testing, the U.S. Army Research Lab issued MIL-DTL-32505 for use in armor applications. 7017 offers high strength,
good weldability, and corrosion resistance. It is currently used in Europe and Asia on combat vehicles to achieve superior ballistic
protection. aleris.com.
BRIEF
The American Welding Society, Miam , rev mpe th ir website o deliver full
content and functionality acros all devices. The new site allow v sitors the abil-
ity to customize their experi nce, whether they ar a student looking for weld ng
classes, a professional searching for conferences and certifications, or a job seek-
er looking for new opportunities.
translation, requiring users to fill in
missing information as well as specify
the type of powder material used. To
complicate matters, traditional printer
designs treat every powder layer the
same, without giving consideration
to thermal properties. In an ideal sys-
tem, different layers would demand
different laser scanning speeds and
powers because the powder environ-
ment changes as the build proceeds.
The new software will be able to con-
trol the scan laser’s parameters as well
as powder characteristics and the part
shape being printed. GE and LLNL will
develop the algorithms during the next
18 months, which will then be publicly
available.
MATERIALS PROCESSING
CENTER CELEBRATES 35 YEARS
On February 1, the Materials Pro-
cessing Center (MPC) at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge,
marked 35 years of service to both facul-
ty and thematerials research communi-
ty. Current MPC research topics build on
the center’s original foundation of met-
allurgy, polymers, composites, and ce-
ramics. As a center within MIT’s School
of Engineering, MPC serves roughly 60
researchers, assists in drafting propos-
als and administering grants, and pro-
vides industrial outreach. Merton Flem-
ings, FASM, founding director of MPC,
recalls that the center arose in 1980 in
response to a need to make American
industry more competitive and bring
the focus back to civilian industry as
the Cold War was winding down. NASA
was an important early MPC funder, fo-
cusing on space materials. Today, MPC
researchers are working on projects to
design and implement energy storage
systems that go beyond the capabilities
of lithium-ion batteries, develop mate-
rials that will enable quantum comput-
ing, and lay the groundwork for inte-
gratedmicrophotonic systems. .
From left, LLNL researchers Ibo Matthews, Wayne King, and Gabe Guss examine a
3D-printed part. Courtesy of Julie Russell/LLNL.
AMERICA MAKES FUNDS
ALGORITHM RESEARCH
General Electric (GE) and Law-
rence Livermore National Laborato-
ry (LLNL), Calif., received $540,000
to develop open-source algorithms
to improve additive manufacturing
(AM) of metal parts. The award is from
America Makes, the National Additive
Manufacturing Innovation Institute in
Youngstown, Ohio. The project intends
to develop software algorithms that
allow selective laser melting (SLM) to
produce high quality parts. Currently,
there is no common approach to SLM to
reduce problems with this method such
as surface roughness, residual stress,
porosity, and micro-cracking—issues
that may cause part failures.
In order to print a 3D part using
SLM, users must enter data into the
printer via a stereolithography file.
However, errors can appear during file
From left, Mayank Bulsara, Merton Flem-
ings, FASM and ASM Life Member, and
Xiaoman Duan. Courtesy of Denis Paiste/
MPC.