Advanced Manufacturing

UConn Secures $10.5 Million AFRL Contract to Propel High-Speed Aerospace Innovations

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Airplane taking off from the airport, front view.

UConn has secured an additional $10.5 million contract from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to support its aerospace manufacturing research, bringing total project funding close to $30 million. This partnership focuses on overcoming manufacturing challenges in aerial systems designed for high speeds and altitudes. Seven faculty members, along with graduate and post-graduate students, will tackle welding-related issues and develop advanced high-temperature materials. These interdisciplinary projects span material science, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, and chemistry.

Professor Rainer Hebert, the primary investigator and Director of the Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Center, emphasized the value of integrating government, industry, and academia in research. UConn’s collaboration with AFRL, which began in 2018, involves major industry partners like Raytheon, Pratt & Whitney, and Collins Aerospace. This partnership has sharpened UConn’s focus on application-relevant research, distinguishing their work from industry projects constrained by production schedules.

The new grant will fund a four-year research project combining experimental and theoretical approaches to advance materials for RTX, formerly Raytheon. Research will explore the behavior of non-metallic, high-temperature materials and additive manufacturing of refractory metals. Additionally, the project will investigate the design and processing of metamaterials capable of modifying heat and electromagnetic fields for improved thermal management.

This continued collaboration underscores UConn’s role as a valuable partner to AFRL and key industry players, driving advancements in aerospace technology and contributing to Connecticut’s economy. Faculty members who will work on projects covered through the $10.5 million contract include Mark Aindow, Pamir Alpay, Osama Bilal, Lesley Frame, Jeongho Kim, Rainer Hebert, and Steven Suib.

Click here for more information about the AFRL project funding.

Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Center Expands Defense Research

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image of jet and submarineThe Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Center (AMC) at UConn Tech Park has expanded its Department of Defense-related research efforts in recent months with new projects related to submarine and aerospace manufacturing.

The submarine industrial base hopes to meet the demand for quality submarine parts by focusing increasingly on additive manufacturing. A team of UConn materials science and engineering faculty along with colleagues from the University of Rhode Island recently started a four-year project funded by the National Institute for Undersea Vehicle Technology (NIUVT) to investigate properties of a steel commonly used in submarine production. The team will explore the material characteristics of parts made of this steel using additive manufacturing as compared to traditional manufacturing technologies such as castings and forgings.

The AMC supports the additive manufacturing aspects of the project that include powder characterization as well as chemical and thermal analysis besides the production of parts. In its newest NIUVT-funded project the AMC will exploit the layer-by-layer manufacturing approach of additive manufacturing to tailor the behavior of bronze materials at specific locations within a part. What is nearly impossible with castings can likely be accomplished with additive manufacturing, for example, to optimize sections of parts for high strength while other regions bear the brunt of energy absorption during service.

The NIUVT additive manufacturing projects and the AMC involvement echo parallel efforts by the Navy to develop an industrial base for additive manufacturing of submarine parts. To this end, the Navy set up an additive manufacturing Center of Excellence in 2022 and in the same context invited researchers from seven US universities to form an academic consortium.

The AMC is part of the consortium and will soon embark on its first project and address the important aspect of metal powder characteristics. Key additive manufacturing technologies use metal powder, and a detailed knowledge of the powder characteristics and flow behavior is needed to advance additive manufacturing to a production level.

Similarly, the Air Force pursues additive manufacturing for some of their current and future systems, particularly in high-temperature applications. Recently, the AMC started a new four-year project sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) on refractory metals for additive manufacturing of high-temperature components. Refractory metals such as niobium have melting points well over 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit but have been difficult to produce with conventional manufacturing technologies. The AMC will investigate process conditions during additive manufacturing and their effects on the details of the niobium metals that matter for their use in high-temperature applications.

With the NIUVT, Navy, and Air Force research activities, the AMC supports some of the most critical applications for the nation and in the process prepares students with expertise in state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies.