SAMULET; Project 4: Project 4.3.1: UFG Ti-6Al-4V for Low Temperature/High Productivity DB/SPF and Project 4.3.2: Hot-Die Forging of Titanium Alloys

制造部件的几种工艺选择要么是质量问题，要么是经济问题。例如，航空航天部件表面的清洁度对于使用电子束焊接技术生产良好的焊缝至关重要；不适当的清洁方法将导致有缺陷的焊缝。同样，钛合金转变为航空航天部件目前是在工具材料迅速变质的温度下进行的，导致工具成本高得令人望而却步。在高温下转换航空航天材料还需要专门的工具--削减成本更高的材料，以及通常高出四倍的资本支出。目前的做法是硬塞控制参数，以实现部件的制造。从经济角度来看，以这种方式继续下去是不可接受的。考虑到部件设计者在演变部件形式时需要充分熟悉几何、功能和制造约束，因此，只有在量化了关键控制参数之后，才能有效地采用新工艺，无论这些工艺是与表面准备(清洁)、高温处理还是与减少进一步表面精加工要求的加工有关。项目4：新的和改造的过程，注意关键控制参数的量化。对一组新的和转变后的流程进行研究，目的是获得专门知识，以便能够设计增值链上的部件和相关流程。这一组指的是对航空航天材料和部件进行激光清洗以进行后续加工，因为众所周知，一些缺陷是由于未能达到质量标准而产生的。项目4的两个方面涉及将材料高温转化为航空航天部件。第一种是指通过引入一种新的原材料形式来在低温下制造部件的新方法-这种超细晶变体使传统工艺(扩散连接和超塑性成形)的操作能够在显著降低的温度下进行，从而降低制造成本。这种细粒度的变种将被制造出来，并接受部件成形练习，以展示制造航空部件的新的经济平衡。第二道工序是航空航天零件的热模锻造。目前的做法是在非常高的温度下将钛合金敲打成粗略的形状，然后削碎以获得最终形式，这被认为是昂贵的。由于工作材料冷却太快，无法在较低的锻造速度下工作，因此需要猛击材料，而在资本支出较低的压力机上可以满足这些要求。如果要在较低温度下工作，可能会使用较小的压力机，但在高温下猛击金属和在较低温度下挤压加工材料之间的平衡尚未确定。这项拟议的研究将确定在较低温度下运行的关键参数。最后一个项目指的是一种优雅的方法，通过减少表面额外的下游加工量来消除部件上剩余的多余材料，以满足性能标准。通过量化刀具和去除多余材料的机器的特性，该技术将使金属去除系统能够以一种识别事实的方式运行，即刀具和机床的特性都会影响切割表面。每个单独的进程都将在航空航天工业部门更具成本效益的原材料转换方面发挥作用，并将对核工业和汽车工业部门产生影响。

Several process options for the manufacture of components are beset with either quality or economic deficiencies. For example, the cleanliness of surfaces of aerospace components is critical to the production of sound welds using electron-beam welding technology; deficient cleaning methods would result in defective welds. Again, the conversion of Titanium alloys into aerospace components is currently attended to at temperatures at which tool-materials deteriorate rapidly, incurring a prohibitively high tool cost. Converting aerospace materials at high-temperatures would also require specialised tool-materials that are more expensive to cut and capital expenditure that is, typically, four times greater. Current practice is to shoehorn the controlling parameters to enable the manufacture of components. Continuation in this manner is unacceptable from an economic viewpoint. Considering that component designers need to be sufficiently conversant with the geometrical, functional and manufacturing constraints while evolving the form of the component, it follows that new processes, regardless of whether these relate to surface preparation (cleaning), processing at elevated temperatures or to machining to reduce further surface finishing requirements, may only be adopted efficiently, after the critical controlling parameters have been quantified. Project 4: Novel and Transformed Processes, attends to the quantification of the key controlling parameters. Research in the group of novel and transformed processes is with a view to acquiring the know-how to enable the design of components and the associated processes along the value-adding chain. This group refers to the laser cleaning of aerospace materials and components for subsequent processing, since it is known that several defects arise from the failure to meet quality standards. Two aspects of Project 4 refer to the high-temperature conversion of materials into aerospace components. The first of these refers to a new means of manufacturing components at low temperature by introducing a new form of raw material - this ultra-fine-grained variant enables the operation of the conventional processes (diffusion bonding and super-plastic forming) at significantly reduced temperatures, resulting in reduced manufacturing cost. This fine-grained variant will be manufactured and subjected to component forming exercises to demonstrate the new economic balance in manufacturing aerospace components. The second process is hot-die forging of aerospace components. The current practice of bashing Titanium alloys at very high temperatures into a rough form and then whittle away to arrive at the final form is recognised as being expensive. The need to bash the material arises from the fact that the work-material cools too rapidly to operate at the lower forging speeds that can be attended to in presses of lower capital expenditure. If one were to operate at lower temperatures, smaller presses may be used but this balance between bashing the metal at high temperatures and squeezing the work-material at lower temperatures has yet to be defined. The proposed research will define the parameters critical to operating at lower temperatures. The final project refers to an elegant approach to removing the excess materials remaining on components in a manner that reduces the amount of additional downstream processing of surfaces to meet performance standards. By quantifying the character of the cutting tool and the machine on which excess material is removed, the technology will enable the operation of the metal-removal system in a manner that recognises the fact that the character of both, the cutting tool and the machine-tool influence the cut surfaces. Each separate process will assume a role in more cost-effective conversion of raw materials for the aerospace industrial sector and would also impact on the nuclear and automotive industrial sectors.