ATI, in conjunction with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, led by Principal Investigator John Foltz and National Lab Partner Aaron Fisher, recently won a Department of Energy award for developing processes to manufacture near-net shape mill-products for use in aerospace, automotive, and other industries. These developments carry major sustainable implications within processes of manufacturing complex and uniquely shaped components. In materials manufacturing for the aerospace industry specifically, up to 95% of metal used is afterwards converted to scrap, simply due to the complex shapes required of aerospace components.
The laboratory implemented advanced HPC (High-Performance Computing) software to create digital twins to simulate the multi-physics problem of multi-stand bar-shaped rolling. These surrogate models were then used to generate a machine-learning model of the near net-shape process. The HPC can be used to reduce much material waste, making processes more efficient and significantly reducing CO2 emissions as a result. The twin models will afterwards be integrated with control signaling to guide the real-time optimization of several benchmark-forming tests. The implementation of such HPC technology showcases the first HPC-enabled NNS-MP system.
Shankarjee Krishnamoorthi, a Research and Design Manager at ATI Specialty Materials elaborates on the complicated and highly technical process: “Physics-based modeling is where you use computer simulations to model what happens in real life. So, what we do in manufacturing, is we [use] computer simulations to make improvements in our process…We try to use a mix of physics-based modeling and data analytics to see if we can come up with [these] models, which can help us understand what we do.”
Our Proven to Perform materials scientists are hard at work developing and refining our manufacturing processes as we continue our journey to become a premium aerospace and defense supplier. By implementing sustainable solutions in our manufacturing processes, we ensure that our materials go further, faster, and are stronger – in this lifetime and the next.
