QuesTek Innovations has launched a partnership with CBMM, the world’s leading producer of Niobium. The partnership will push the boundaries of materials engineering and open a new frontier of capabilities through the expanded use of Niobium.
Through the partnership, QuesTek will explore material compositions leveraging Niobium to achieve high strength and heat resistance in novel alloys suitable for additive manufacturing. Using its ICMD® materials design and engineering platform, QuesTek can explore the addition of Niobium to a wide array of alloys as well as how current Niobium alloys can be optimized.
“In the world of high-temperature metal alloys, right now Niobium is one of the most-promising candidates,” says QuesTek executive vice president of market operations Jason Sebastian. “When it comes to turbines, rocket engines and hypersonic materials, the hotter they can run the more fuel-efficient they become. This partnership between CBMM and QuesTek is positioned to enable new levels of performance through niobium-containing novel materials.”
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Partnership with CBMM is a natural next step for QuesTek to leverage their experience with designing Niobium alloys under the ARPA-E “ULTIMATE” program. In this program QuesTek is applying computational materials design to additive manufacturing (AM), coating technology, and turbine design/manufacturing to develop a comprehensive solution for a next-generation turbine blade alloy and coating system capable of sustained operation at 1300°C. As a part of this program, QuesTek has developed and matured several physics-based material property models, and has develop kinetic and thermodynamic databases for niobium alloy systems exclusive to QuesTek.
QuesTek’s digital capabilities using ICMD® dramatically reduces the amount of physical experimentation needed to design, develop and deploy novel materials. While the partnership with CBMM is focused exclusively on Niobium alloys, ICMD® is capable of optimizing countless other materials and applications.
“Nickel-based superalloys could be reaching their full potential of optimization,” says Rafael Mesquita, CBMM’s Technology Director. “QuesTek is at the forefront of the digital transformation of materials engineering and this partnership creates the opportunity to achieve more of the vast potential of Niobium for heat resistance and other properties. ICMD® and QuesTek’s expertise in physics-based modeling are perfectly suited to unlock enormous unrealized value in Niobium through new applications worldwide.”
CBMM headquarters and industrial complex are located in the city of Araxá, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Niobium is commonly added to steels across a wide range of industries to enhance an alloy’s wear resistance and overall strength.
SOURCE: PRNewswire