The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is taking charge of a new venture aimed at forging the next generation of military-grade steel, a project supported by a hefty $5 million grant from the Office of Naval Research. In partnership with Mississippi State University, faculty from various disciplines at UT will focus on creating steels for the Navy's submarines and ships - an undertaking that revives domestic production capabilities long outsourced abroad.
Eric Lass, an assistant professor of materials science at UT, detailed the initiative's objectives. "For several decades, the U.S. offshored this work; we will be creating new steel technology that can improve national security and be produced domestically," Lass told the University of Tennessee, Knoxville's news site. The team includes Lass along with Dayakar Penumadu and Bradley Jared, who contribute their expertise from civil, environmental, mechanical, aerospace, and biomedical engineering realms to the project.
This ambitious project centers on three main areas: developing new steel materials, advancing welding and strengthening mechanisms, and focusing on wire arc additive manufacturing. Detailed by UT's new reports, the research and development process will progress from university labs to larger-scale production at the Rapid Applied Materials Processing lab, which rests on Navy property in Memphis, Tennessee. The goal? To not just meet, but exceed the existing benchmarks of military steel production.
At the University of Tennessee, Knoxville's news platform, James Andes, the director of national security research initiatives at UT, emphasized the significance of the grant. "This $5 million award can really move the needle on research in these areas," Andes mentioned. The work undertaken will span over three years, where the researchers will initially focus on wire production for improved welding, then develop new wire compositions, and ultimately apply this technology to the joining of new steel with these innovative wires.
The collaborative effort is slated to not only boost the Navy's capabilities but also redefine the scope of metallurgy as a field ripe for innovation. "This project is exciting not only because we are creating next-generation materials for the Navy," Lass explained, "but because metallurgy is often seen as a mature technology that’s overlooked when people think about manufacturing innovation." Incorporating data science and expansive industrial scaling, the project is poised to leverage the full breadth of modern technology and research in the service of national defense and manufacturing progress.
