AN IN-SITU PARTICLE SENSOR FOR METAL FORMING PROCESSES

NUMEROUS PROCESSES ARE BEING DEVELOPED FOR THE MANUFACTURING OF ADVANCE COMPOSITES WHICH INCORPORATE CERAMICS, POLYMERS, METALS AND/OR METAL ALLOYS. THE SUCCESS OF THESE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES IS CRITICALLY DEPENDENT ON THE ABILITY TO BOTH MONITOR AND CONTROL THE PROCESSING CONDITIONS. OF PARTICULAR INTEREST IS THE DEVELOPMENT OF POWDERED METALS AS A SOURCE MATERIAL FOR A VARIETY OF METAL FORMING PROCESSES, SUCH AS PLASMA SPRAY, SINTERING, AND HOT ISOSTATIC PRESSING. HOWEVER, A LACK OF SENSORS IS SLOWING THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE POWDER TECHNOLOGY. THIS PROJECT WILL DEVELOP AND FIELD TEST A METAL POWDER SMART-SENSOR WHICH CAN BE EMPLOYED IN THE HOT PARTICLE FORMING PLUME, IN THE FOLLOWING STREAM OF FORMED PARTICLES, AND AS PART OF A SIZING SYSTEM TO CHARACTERIZE COLLECTED PARTICLES. THE TECHNIQUE EMPLOYS FOURIER TRANSFORM INFRARED (FT-IR) SPECTROSCOPY TO DIFFERENTIATE THE SCATTERING OF VARIOUS PARTICLE SIZES. FT-IR SCATTERING (FT-IRS) SPECTROSCOPY RELIES ON THE WAVELENGTH DEPENDENCE OF LIGHT SCATTERING RATHER THAN THE ANGULAR DEPENDENCE EMPLOYED BY OTHER TECHNIQUES. IN ADDITION, FT-IR EMISSION SPECTROSCOPY IN COMBINATION WITH FT-IRS OFFERS A UNIQUE CAPABILITY FOR PARTICLE TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENTS IN THE PLUME. BECAUSE OF THEFT-IR'S CAPABILITIES, A SINGLE SPECTROMETER WILL BE ABLE TO MONITOR PARTICLE SIZE DISTRIBUTIONS AND TEMPERATURES IN A PROCESS STREAM, AND ISSUE PROCESS CONTROL COMMANDS. IN PHASE I AN FT-IR INSTRUMENT FOR IN-SITU PARTICLE ANALYSIS OF THE PLUME OF A METAL POWDER FACILITY (MPF) WILL BE DEVELOPED AND FIELD TESTED. THE INSTRUMENT DEVELOPMENT WOULD INCLUDE COUPLING OF TWO DETECTORS FOR LONG AND SHORT WAVELENGTH MEASUREMENTS, THE DEVELOPMENT OF OPTICS TO COUPLE THE INSTRUMENT TO THE MPF, THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CALIBRATION SYSTEM, AND FAST DATA ACQUISITION AND ANALYSIS ALGORITHMS APPLICABLE TO HIGH-RATE METAL FORMING PROCESSES. FIELD TESTING WILL OCCUR OVER A ONE TO TWO WEEK PERIOD IN THE FIFTH MONTH OF THE PROGRAM.