CAREER: Understanding and controlling the sintering of metal powders with nanoscale additives

职业：了解和控制纳米级添加剂金属粉末的烧结

• 批准号: 2340688
• 负责人: William LePage
• 金额: $ 68.23万
• 依托单位: University of Tulsa
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-08-01 至 2029-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2340688&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Understanding; controlling; sintering; metal

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARYThis CAREER project connects research on sustainable 3D printing of metals with education efforts to inspire K-12 and college students through hands-on materials science combined with inspiring stories about several highly accomplished Black scientists. The research addresses critical questions surrounding a type of metal 3D printing called binder jet. Metals are central to food, water, transportation, and healthcare, but unfortunately, metal extraction and production generates 10% of global climate change impacts. Therefore, there is a need for doing more with less for metals. Towards this, binder jet is one of the most promising ways to make sustainable metal parts at a large scale. However, binder jet is being held back by knowledge gaps about the science of sintering. Sintering happens when solid pieces of material fuse together over time, such as ice cubes sticking together in a freezer. For binder jet, sintering is critical because it fuses metal powders into the final part. Sintering is highly sensitive to the chemical composition of surfaces, yet there is little understanding about how small changes in surface compositions (such as coatings) influence the sintering of metal powders. To advance binder jet, this work uses a multi-modal approach to understand important physical and chemical processes during sintering. Overall, this research paves the way towards understanding, predicting, and controlling sintering of metals with trace additives, towards sustainable metal manufacturing. The project's integrated research and education efforts have broad impacts around society. The research itself opens new doors for scalable, sustainable metal manufacturing for automotive, aerospace, and beyond. Additionally, this project launches education initiatives that work towards full participation of people from historically underrepresented groups in STEM, along with enhanced STEM education and educator development. These efforts start locally in the Tulsa community by sharing hands-on K-12 modules on sintering, along with captivating stories about highly accomplished Black scientists. The efforts expand globally in collaboration with TeachEngineering.org and NSBE. Overall, the integrated research and education supports the growth of a diverse, globally competitive STEM workforce.TECHNICAL SUMMARYThe research of this project focuses on unlocking new paradigms for the performance and predictability of high-volume, high-efficiency metal parts fabricated by binder jet. The intellectual merit centers on establishing extensive process-structure-property relationships for sintered Al- and Ti-alloy powders with and without trace additives that enhance sintering. In detail, the investigation probes the evolution of particle interfaces, necks, grains, and pores during sintering with nanoscale additives (e.g., enhancing binders, nanoparticles, powder coatings, and infiltrants). The work uses in situ microscopy and spectroscopy to unravel coupled physical and chemical mechanisms, in light of bulk dilatometry, in situ quantification of sintering distortions, and mechanical properties after sintering. Additionally, this work studies important pore/grain-boundary interactions by introducing a new class of nanoscale infiltration, which provides a toolbox to study vacancy diffusion and pore/grain boundary interactions, as well as a new pathway for increasing the density of sintered metals. This work also quantifies part distortion via digital image correlation to calibrate models of binder jet sintering based on the material point method, a powerful way to model the physics of millions of particles. Overall, the research addresses key questions about the combined chemical/physical interactions of additives with the base metal during sintering. This opens new horizons for tailored/designer powders, nanoparticles, coatings, additives, and infiltrants. The research integrates closely with education that seeks to enrich science learning and inspire future STEM leaders. In collaboration with STEM educators in the Tulsa community, the work shares hands-on activities that bring sintering to life for students. Coupled with this hands-on learning is the sharing of stories, posters, and digital media about numerous highly accomplished Black engineers and material scientists. In collaboration with NSBE, these stories are distributed worldwide. Finally, building from the sintering research, a new laboratory module on powder metallurgy is added to the undergraduate curriculum at The University of Tulsa.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

非技术摘要这一职业项目将有关可持续3D金属印刷的研究与通过动手材料科学启发K-12和大学生的教育努力联系起来，并结合了有关几位高度成就的黑人科学家的鼓舞人心的故事。该研究涉及围绕一种称为粘合剂喷气的金属3D打印类型的关键问题。金属是食品，水，运输和医疗保健的核心，但不幸的是，金属提取和生产产生了全球气候变化影响的10％。因此，对于金属而言，需要做更多的事情。为此，活页夹是大规模制造可持续金属零件的最有希望的方法之一。但是，粘合喷气局因有关烧结科学的知识差距而被阻止。随着时间的推移，固体材料融合在一起时，就会发生烧结，例如将冰块粘在冰箱中。对于粘合剂喷气机，烧结至关重要，因为它将金属粉末融合到最后一部分。烧结对表面的化学成分高度敏感，但是对表面成分（例如涂层）如何影响金属粉末的烧结的小变化几乎没有理解。为了推进活页夹，这项工作采用多模式方法来了解烧结过程中重要的物理和化学过程。总体而言，这项研究铺平了理解，预测和控制带有痕量添加剂的金属烧结，朝着可持续金属制造的方式。该项目的综合研究和教育工作对社会产生了广泛的影响。该研究本身为可扩展，可持续的金属制造开放了新的大门，用于汽车，航空航天及其他地区。此外，该项目启动了教育计划，旨在致力于从历史上代表性不足的STEM中充分参与STEM的人，并增强了STEM教育和教育工作者的发展。这些努力从塔尔萨社区本地开始，通过分享动手动手的K-12模块，以及令人着迷的有关高度成就的黑人科学家的故事。与Thengengineering.org和NSBE合作，全球努力的努力扩展。总体而言，综合研究和教育支持了多样化的全球竞争性STEM劳动力的增长。技术总结该项目的研究重点是解锁新的范式，以实现由Binder Jet制造的大量高效率，高效率金属零件的性能和可预测性。智力优点集中在建立烧结的Al和Ti-Alloy粉末的广泛的过程结构 - 合作关系，并没有痕量添加剂，从而增强了烧结。详细介绍，研究探测了与纳米级添加剂（例如增强的粘合剂，纳米颗粒，粉末涂料和浸润剂）烧结过程中粒子界面，颈部，谷物和孔的演变。这项工作使用原位显微镜和光谱法来构建物理和化学机制，鉴于散装扩张法，烧结扭曲的原位定量以及烧结后的机械性能。此外，这项工作通过引入新的纳米级浸润来研究重要的孔/晶型相互作用，该纳米级浸润提供了一个工具箱来研究空缺扩散和孔/晶界相互作用，以及增加烧结金属密度的新途径。这项工作还通过数字图像相关性量化了部分失真，以基于材料点方法校准粘合射流烧结的模型，这是一种模拟数百万颗粒物理学的有力方法。总体而言，该研究解决了有关在烧结过程中添加剂与碱金属的化学/物理相互作用组合的关键问题。这为量身定制的/设计师粉末，纳米颗粒，涂料，添加剂和浸润剂打开了新的视野。该研究与旨在丰富科学学习并激发未来STEM领导者的教育紧密融合。与塔尔萨社区中的STEM教育者合作，该作品分享了动手活动，使学生栩栩如生。再加上这种动手学习的是关于众多高度成就的黑人工程师和物质科学家的故事，海报和数字媒体的共享。这些故事与NSBE合作，在全球范围内分发。最后，从烧结研究中建立一个新的实验室模块，将有关粉末冶金的新实验室模块添加到塔尔萨大学的本科课程中。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响审查标准来评估的。