Large-Scale Manufacturing of Bulk Metallic Glass Sheets and Fiber Metal Laminates

Liquidmetal Technologies (LMT) and the University of Southern California (USC)'s M.C. Gill Composites Center team up to develop manufacturing processes for large-scale bulk metallic glass (BMG) and fiber laminate systems for aerospace applications. The proposed innovation consists of the development of a process to manufacture thin BMG sheets (150mm x 300mm x 0.1-1mm) by tube casting and hot rolling along with a process to fabricate fiber metal laminates (FMLs) utilizing the BMG sheets thereof and carbon fiber prepregs. While Phase I would focus on development of a small-scale prototype, the completed Phase I work would also give insight into the feasibility of large-scale manufacturing processes, such as vertical continuous casting, flash processing, autoclave moulding, out-of-autoclave moulding, and press moulding, many of which would be explored in a potential Phase II effort. Thus, in Phase I the technology readiness level (TRL) of the proposed innovation would increase from 2 to 3, and in Phase II the TRL would increase from 3 to 5.