ATP FOCUSED PROGRAM: Materials Processing for Heavy Manufacturing

• Active or completed projects: 22
• Estimated ATP funding: $ 43.0 M
• Industry cost-share funding: $ 40.0 M

Potential for U.S. Economic Benefit. Consider this business scenario. You have just developed a new surface treatment to make metal parts less vulnerable to wear, corrosion, and fatigue. However, the material processing is too difficult and, therefore, unattractive to end users, such as heavy off-road equipment manufacturers, at a price they are willing to pay. Yet, only market demand by those very same end users can justify your company to commit research and development resources to make the surface treatment simpler and affordable. Epilogue: the technology remains a laboratory curio despite its promise to greatly increase the durability, reliability, and ease of maintenance of vehicles, machinery, power-generation equipment, and other big-ticket items.

Members of the heavy manufacturing "food chain"—materials suppliers, materials processors, processing equipment manufacturers, component manufacturers, and original equipment manufacturers—estimate that up to $25 billion in additional market share would follow early in the next century if they could more systematically break through this kind of problem. These are the industries that compete for $1 trillion worth of global infrastructure work, which supports a $100 billion annual worldwide market in heavy off-road equipment that is expected to double early in the next century. They compete to supply equipment for large power plants, a $45 billion worldwide market each year, which is growing at a rate of 2 percent per year. The same set of industries competes for the annual $60 billion domestic market in vehicular engines, power trains, and chassis of vehicles, which also is growing at a 2-percent annual rate.

Technology Challenge. The primary technical goal of the ATP focused program in Materials Processing for Heavy Manufacturing is to develop and demonstrate innovative materials-processing technologies that will help U.S. companies in the heavy manufacturing sector make longer lasting, more reliable, and more efficient products, features that will give their products a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Truck engines that need overhauls only after 1,600,000 km (1 million miles), drive trains that require only half as much maintenance and repair, and a 2-percent increase in power-generation efficiency are among the specific goals. One versatile tactic for achieving these and other ends is to develop surface treatments and coatings that make ceramic and metal components more resistant to wear, corrosion, fatigue, or temperature-mediated degradation.

Another key technical goal is to significantly reduce manufacturing costs, a factor that will enable U.S. manufacturers to offer passenger cars, light trucks, and heavy equipment at prices that will make them especially attractive in the rapidly growing and highly competitive markets of developing countries. Some of the major strategies for lowering manufacturing costs are the elimination of processing steps, the prevention of waste and pollution, and the reduction of manufacturing cycle time. One specific tactic to increase efficiency is to implement "intelligent processing" methods in which on-line monitoring and real-time process control enable manufacturers to tune their process continuously to maximize efficiency and quality rather than relying mostly on costly post-manufacturing inspection and bearing the high rejection rates that often follow. A way to reduce manufacturing time is through more intensive process modeling and rapid prototyping techniques, which also can make it possible to concurrently engineer several process steps rather than having to wait for the completion of earlier steps before focusing on later ones. Among tactics to prevent, control, and minimize waste and pollution is to convert steel waste into cement and concrete feedstock and to recover iron from the dust and slag of steel making.

Industry Commitment. An extensive series of workshops and working group meetings began in November 1993, involving many companies distributed among the heavy manufacturing industries. By the following summer, over 40 companies either individually or jointly submitted white papers to NIST outlining specific projects suited for an ATP focused program as well as expressing commitments to share the costs of seeing the projects through to successful completions with the ultimate goal of moving these technologies to the market. The companies include both large and small materials suppliers, component manufacturers, and original equipment manufacturers. Some of these companies already have formed R&D alliances for such projects as developing specialty materials for the power industry and processing waste dust in electric furnaces of the steel industry, and they would like to develop more alliances.

Significance of ATP Funds. The unique contribution that the ATP can make in materials processing for heavy manufacturing is to support projects whose success would simultaneously reduce manufacturing costs and yield products that are better in quality, efficiency, durability, and other factors that persuade or dissuade customers to buy. These projects typically fall under the high-risk category that companies cannot pursue amid more immediate challenges. While there is a significant government investment in materials technologies for specific applications—aerospace, for example—there is no concerted government program that addresses the technology challenges to be met by this focused program. In addition, this ATP focused program will forge new forms of vertical integration among companies, thereby creating versatile technology development and commercial infrastructures that will outlast the actual ATP program.

Additional Information. For information about eligibility, how to apply, and cost-sharing requirements, contact the Advanced Technology Program:

(800)-ATP-FUND [(800)-287-3863]
e-mail: atp@nist.gov
facsimile: (301) 926-9524
A430 Administration Building
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-0001

For technical information, contact:
Clare Allocca, Program Manager
(301) 975-4359
e-mail: clare.allocca@nist.gov
facsimile: (301) 548-1087

Date created: January 1999
Last updated: April 12, 2005