GOALI: Agile Fabrication of Gel-Cast Multicomponent Oxide Composites

伊利诺伊大学和卡特彼勒公司的研究人员正在开发一种创新、灵活的方法，用于可靠地制造高温柴油发动机应用的定制氧化物复合材料。 这个跨学科的大学-工业计划旨在建立基础加工知识库，以创建下一代柴油发动机组件，具有高热效率和降低油耗。 该计划涉及同时开发新材料系统，制造工艺和目标应用。 该材料系统由在有机水溶液中加工的氧化物基复合粉末组成，该复合粉末在铸造时经历凝胶化以形成刚性部件。 该系统将用作机器人控制的挤出装置（固体自由成形制造装置）中的原料，其允许在100 μ m量级的长度尺度上进行局部成分定制。 这两种新兴技术（“凝胶”铸造和固体自由成形制造）的结合将在这里首次进行研究，并且应该会在先进陶瓷的加工、设计和性能方面产生显着的改进。

An innovative, agile approach for reliably fabricating tailored oxide composites for high temperature diesel engine applications is being developed under Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI) program involving researchers at the University of Illinois and Caterpillar, Inc. This interdisciplinary university-industry program is aimed at establishing the underlying processing knowledge base needed to create the next generation of components for diesel engines with high thermal efficiency and reduced fuel consumption. The program involves the simultaneous development a new materials system, manufacturing process, and target application. The materials system consists of an oxide-based composite powder processed in an aqueous organic solution that undergoes gelation to form a rigid component upon casting. This system will serve as the feedstock in a robotically controlled extrusion apparatus, a solid freeform fabrication device, that allows for local compositional tailoring on length scales of the order of 100 um. The combination of these two emerging technologies, "gel" casting and solid freeform fabrication, will be studied here for the first time, and should yield dramatic improvements in the processing, design, and performance of advanced ceramics.