Current Major R & D & C Powder Metallurgy Activities in Australia

Ma Qian

Committee Chair, Powder Metallurgy Australia The University of Queensland, Australia

APMA 2011, 30 October – 2 November 2011, Jeju, Korea

Main features • Largely academic driven; the most active PM

period in the history of Australia (~ 80 people including PhD students)

• Focusing predominantly on PM of light metals and alloys (titanium, aluminium, titanium aluminide, light metal-ceramic composite)

• Strong research activities on laser or electron beam forming (powder based additive or direct manufacturing)

• Increasing interest is seen from the industry in PM Ti including metal injection moulding

PM Ti Ti Powder Production: The TiRO™ process

A modified Kroll process consisting of two steps:

• titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4) and magnesium (Mg) powder react in a fluidised bed to form tiny (1.5 μm) Ti metal particles uniformly dispersed inside larger spheroidal MgCl2 particles of ~ 350 μm in size, and

• continuous vacuum distillation to remove MgCl2 from the MgCl2-Ti aggregates

Titanium Technologies, Future Manufacturing Flagship, CSIRO

The initial laboratory scale proof-of-concept reactor: 0.2kg/hour of Ti powder The current scalable pilot reactor: 2.0 g/hour Work is under way to further refine the reactor design for larger scale production

The TiRO™ process (continued)

CSIRO's laboratory-scale titanium powder plant.

Design and development of lower cost high performance PM Ti alloys for near net shape and/or preform fabrications

The Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Design in Light Metals

Titanium Technologies, Future Manufacturing Flagship, CSIRO

Several other organisations including the Defence Materials Technology Centre (DMTC) and CAST-CRC

Major developments and current status: One very promising lower cost PM Ti alloy has been

developed by the ARC CoE PM Ti team at The University of Queesland.

Cost of the materials for the new PM Ti alloy (-100

mesh Ti powder and alloying elements): US$22-25/kg Conventional cold-compact-and-sinter properties: UTS ≥ 1050 MPa, YS ≥ 850 MPa, EL ≥ 6%

Further assessment is underway including the properties after forging

Proditanium sheet from powder

• direct powder rolling to form a green strip

• hot rolling to form to a fully dense strip

• heat treatments to achieve the desired microstructures and mechanical properties

Currently at a pilot-scale

Titanium Technologies, Future Manufacturing Flagship, CSIRO

Cold Spray Forming of Titanium Pipe and other Products from Powder and Coating and Repair

Titanium powder particles are accelerated to supersonic speeds (500-1 500 metres per second) to impact a substrate to form a metallurgical bond. Cold Spray is a layer additive forming process Frontline Australasia, a Victorian based manufacturer and supplier of precision components, has licensed CSIRO cold spray for production of titanium pipe.

http://www.rusonic.com/tech.htm

Titanium Technologies, Future Manufacturing Flagship, CSIRO

Additive manufacturing of Ti from powder Laser or electron beam forming Layer by layer There have been several installations of laser and

electron beam additive manufacturing systems Another major installation will occur in January

2012 at Monash Camplex Pty Ltd Australia http://www.camplex.com.au/Applications/Additi

ve-Manufacturing

Biocompatible Titanium alloys by the PM Approach

Porous Ti alloy scaffolds support the growth and proliferation of a significant larger number of osteoblast-like (bone-forming) cells (SaOS2) than dense counterparts

Systematic work has been carried out on the development of biocompatible titanium alloys with biocompatible alloying elements (Zr, Ta, Nb, Mo, Sn and Si) by the PM approach at the following Australian universities

Swinburne University of Technology

University of Western Australia

Deakin University

2nd Australia-China Biomedical Titanium Workshop , 25-26 Oct 2011, Brisbane, Australia

Materials sintered by MW radiation to date in Australia

• Silicon powder • Ni powder compacts • Cu powder compacts • W powder compacts • Hydrogenated-dehydrogenated (HDH) Ti powder from 4 different suppliers • Ti-6Al-4V (HDH Ti + master alloy powders) • Ti-10V-2Fe-3Al (HDH Ti + master alloy powders) • A few non-commercial Ti alloys S.D. LUO, M. YAN, G.B. SCHAFFER, and M. QIAN, Sintering of Titanium in Vacuum

by Microwave Radiation, Metall. Mater. Trans. A 2011:42A;2466-2474

Sintering of metal powder compacts by microwave radiation

Heating rate: averaged in temperature range 450-1300 ºC

Fast heating

Conventional (CV) sintering: was carried out in a vacuum furnace at heating/cooling rate 4

°C/min, due to the poor thermal shock resistance of alumina tube

Appears to be very promising for the sintering of small parts

PM Aluminium

Sample separation distance: 40mm Sample separation distance: 20mm

Use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to assist in the understanding of the distortion and porosity evolution during sintering The University of Queensland

Nearly 90 presentations from 14 countries

AND

A Panel Discussion on the Future of PM Ti with or without further lower cost Ti powder

The largest ever gathering related to PM Ti

You are most welcome