MTI and EWI Involved In DOE Research Project

MTI is proud to announce its involvement in a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) research project, which focuses on the durability of friction welds created with dissimilar metals.

The DOE's Office of Fossil Energy and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) recently selected two projects to receive approximately 10 million dollars in federal funding for the cost-shared research and development endeavors.

MTI will collaborate with EWI on one of the selected projects, which is outlined by the DOE below:

Robust Dissimilar Metal Friction Welded Spool for Enhanced Capability for Steam Power Components – General Electric Company, GE Research (Niskayuna, NY), in collaboration with EWI and Manufacturing Technology Inc., will work to improve the durability of dissimilar metal welds (DMWs) for boiler and heat recovery steam generator applications with reduced maintenance costs and enhanced capability of coal plant cycling operations. GE will develop a durable, friction-welded dissimilar-metal spool utilizing the higher capability transition material of a nanostructured ferritic alloy and an oxidation protective coating across the joint that will be retrofittable in the existing steam fleet. Improved joint durability should enable an increase in the number of cold starts and cycling behavior of the steam fleet and reduce unplanned outages from DMW failures.

Friction welding is a solid-state joining process, which allows for the joining of dissimilar metals.

MTI and EWI are also collaborating on the development of Low Force Friction Welding. You can read more about the project here.

To read the full release from the DOE, click here.