NSF SBIR
Phase I

The broader/commercial impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project seeks to develop a welding technology that will improve the repair, joining, and additive manufacturing of metallic parts and features. First applications include material additions to repair gouges and mis-drilled holes during aircraft production and service, both of which represent significant financial opportunities. Repairs to the structural material are not currently permissible in a production environment due to adverse effects of currently available repair methods on base material properties, usually due to extreme temperatures. Aerostructure manufacturers have a strong incentive to minimize the weight of the aircraft structure, often at the significant financial and environmental expense of scrapping a whole panel. Maintenance, repair and overhaul often entails total replacement of damaged components with new ones as improper repairs of critical components can cause catastrophic harm. Replacement of parts is expensive and has long lead times due to high-value, low-volume nature of the aerospace industry. This project will develop an effective restoration method to repair of metallic components, while being agnostic to the material and part geometry. Reclamation of previously unrepairable parts made from materials such as titanium, nickel, and aluminum has a large positive environmental impact. Additionally, by broadly enabling solid-state joining, this technology will disrupt the welding industry, globally valued at $20 billion. The foundational technology platform, led in the US, will produce new jobs in science, technology and engineering fields while bolstering domestic manufacturing supply chains.

 

The innovation underpinning this project involves the sequential, tactical, and controlled deposition of metals using explosive welding. Explosive welding uses coin-sized metallic elements launched to speeds in the range of 300-1000m/s without explosives. While it is known that explosive welding can weld large plates together, the method is not suited to automation or conventional industrial settings. Impact welding will be developed as a fill-welding technique, much like a filler metal in conventional welding, and will use wrought sheet metal as feedstock. Here, electrically vaporized metallic foils will be used as the driver for the fill elements and the research will focus on whether those elements can be launched reproducibly to develop large bond areas and reproducible positioning. The ability to control element shape and orientation during flight and produce an interface that is fully welded are the most high-risk aspects of the technology. Mechanical testing, scanning electron microscopy, and inline process monitoring such as photonic Doppler velocimetry will be performed. This effort will develop a new process-structure-property loop, with the goal of producing parts that are better than those made with a competing technology such as cold spray as measured by total energy consumption, cost, and mechanical properties.