Lightweighting Metals Institute Looks to Lighten Up Iron and Toughen Up Aluminum

The Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow (LIFT) consortium has announced its first two technology accleration projects to develop lighter cast iron and harder die-cast aluminum. The consortium is operated by the public/private American Lightweight Materials Manufacturing Innovation Institute (ALMMII).

The institute, which which opened the doors of its research facility in January, aims to help move existing, innovative lightweight metals into mature processes that can then be quickly scaled up for production. At the same time, projects will also focus on reducing the design and integration time for implementing new metals in new products, as well as devising more affordable automated manufacturing processes. The institute will also verify and validate products via testing and pilot production runs, and train materials design and manufacturing workers in Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME).

ICME combines design and production parameters with data about a new metal's microstructure to predict how parts made with the metal will perform, LIFT's executive director, Larry Brown, told Design News. The use of this emerging discipline could cut design and test time of new components made with the new materials and manufacturing processes.

As with any new technology, one of the institute's challenges in exploring new lightweight metals is the time it takes to qualify a given part or material for a given configuration or application, said Brown. "In some industries, it can take a long time to introduce a new material, or do all the testing for a particular application, and then get it into production. Some industries are very conservative and some, like aerospace, have long product development cycles. As an institute, we want to look at new tools available for modeling, so we can do analysis and simulation instead of only a lot of empirical tests, and maybe shorten and minimize the cost of introducing a new material into a new product line. ICME can accelerate this."

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LIFT is developing technology that's applicable to both defense and commercial use, said Brown. "When you think about lightweight metals and their alloys, many started their use in aircraft, which was a natural, or in space programs. Now you're starting to see some of those materials coming into automotive. Often, the government, whether the military or NASA, starts things first and then spins out a technology to the commercial side. The military also has an interest in lightweighting for their vehicles, but they may have different criteria, such as a weight exchange in a military aircraft to carry more cargo or equipment."

The consortium's first project will look at how innovations in melt processing for cast iron might reduce the weight of metal in an automotive transmission differential case 30 to 50%, depending on the part's load requirements. This could potentially be achieved through integrating better manufacturing methods with different available alloys so the wall thickness of ductile iron cast parts can be reduced by up to 50%.

Michigan Technological University (MTU) and Grede Holdings LLC are the lead research and industry partners. Core product designs are being provided by Grede, which has origins in two different foundries, and Eaton, an electrical, hydraulic and mechanical power management company. Using Grede's high-precision molding machines, MTU says it expects to optimize composition and cooling rates to create thin-wall ductile iron components, which will maintain both desired microstructures and performance, as well as to design optimized component geometries. Other project partners include the American Foundry Society, Comau, PDA, and MIT. Results from this first project are expected in about a year, said Brown.

With Boeing and Ohio State University as lead partners, LIFT's second technology acceleration project aims to cut manufacturing costs and part weights in transportation applications by advancing technologies used to die cast and heat-treat aluminum parts. The two-year project will use a high-speed, vacuum-aided, aluminum die-casting process to produce airplane wing access panels and then heat-treat them to increase hardness.

Instead of compensating for the microscopic bubbles that form in parts during current high-speed aluminum die casting by making parts thicker, Ohio State University says bubbles can be eliminated before the molten metal flows. This has already been demonstrated in the lab. ICME will be an important part of this project by enhancing the computer models' ability to predict the performance of aluminum die-cast parts. Additional project partners include Eaton, Alcoa, FCA (Chrysler), Comau, and Nemak in industry, along with the American Foundry Society and the North American Die Casting Association. Additional research participants include Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Southwest Research Institute, University of Michigan, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

With nearly 90 industrial and academic partners in the LIFT consortium, Brown said he expects to be regularly announcing a lot more technology projects. In most cases, the metals technology in a project is at the applied development, or manufacturing readiness, stage, right before commercialization. "We're looking at bringing in metals that have already been developed, and for which we have some cursory data on how that metal may be applied. Say they've got the material property data for a particular application, and now they want to connect the dots for a specific product. Or we're working with someone that wants to work with an alloy but hasn't done it before, so it's a complete materials swap. In that case, you must be able to understand form, fit and function of the component, the vehicle or whatever you're making, and make sure it can still meet its intended purpose using the new material."

LIFT is also working on several education and workforce development initiatives. "What's just as important as the technology and the alloys is workforce development," said Brown. "What good is it to develop new technology if you don't have a workforce with the know-how to implement it or use it? We need to make sure we have people who are well trained in the innovations we're generating."

Ann R. Thryft is senior technology editor, materials & assembly, for Design News. She's been writing about manufacturing- and electronics-related technologies for 27 years, covering manufacturing materials & processes, alternative energy, and robotics. In the past, she's also written about machine vision and all kinds of communications.