This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will develop low cost, high-temperature materials which are lighter than titanium, with added corrosion and other functional benefits for targeted industrial applications. This program will utilize a combination of new nanostructured materials with spark plasma sintering (SPS) processing techniques to provide lightweight, multifunctional composite materials with highly tailorable properties (modulus, corrosion resistance, coefficient of thermal expansion, conductivity, etc.) for various specialized industrial components and applications. For oil and gas exploration, as the drilling depths become greater and greater, weight is more important than ever. A reduction in the weight of key components provides important cost and performance advantages when considering the energy required to move and rotate materials at extreme depths. The new techniques which will be developed will allow the synthesis of advanced materials into useful net shape parts with engineered properties. The creation of these materials will enable end users to obtain higher strength and modulus to weight ratios than ever before.
The broader impact/commercial potential of this project stems from a market-driven opportunity for manufacturing of specialized materials. The ability to design low-cost materials with unique properties for demanding applications will create market pull from industries where high-performance materials are critical to success. The resulting materials will allow a combination of strength-to-weight ratio, thermal performance, and wear/corrosion resistance which is not currently available. This will create value in the oil and gas, aerospace, defense/military, and energy industries. In a larger sense, the new technology will provide a new technology platform for manufacturing, a sector which has been in decline in the United States. This will enable new and improved products to get to market, creating US manufacturing jobs and worldwide opportunities for these products.
