Nickel-free Conductive Fillers

The proposed program will complete the final level of tooling scale up for a production machine dedicated to filler manufacturing. This scale up uses an approach that has been demonstrated previously and therefore has a low level of associated risk. Along with the tooling scale up, there will also be a finalization of the manufacturing process that will be used in conjunction with the large capacity tooling. The process will be refined and optimized so that the filler meets all requirements. The new tooling will be moved within the production machine to demonstrate uniformity of filler characteristics regardless of tooling location. When the process has been optimized and validated, formal process control documentation will be developed to reflect the optimization and control limits at the scaled up conditions. This documentation will be developed with input from OEM M&P team. This equipment will be used to manufacture filler for qualification tests in several applications and for manufacturing after transition.