University of Tennessee Awarded $5 Million from Office of Naval Research To Develop Next Generation of Military Steel

Multidisciplinary faculty teams at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in collaboration with colleagues from Mississippi State University, are using a $5 million award to apply their expertise in advanced manufacturing, metallurgy and welding to create new steels for the United States Navy.

"The Naval Surface Warfare Center and the Office of Naval Research knew the country needed to revitalize its capability to develop military-grade steel for submarines and ship hulls," said Eric Lass, assistant professor of materials science in UT's Tickle College of Engineering. "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, along with Dayakar Penumadu, the Fred N. Peebles Professor and IAMM Chair of Excellence in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Bradley Jared, associate professor of mechanical, aerospace, and biomedical engineering, will focus on the development of new steel materials, welding and strengthening mechanisms, and wire arc additive manufacturing.

"The testing and development of new wire technology will allow better welding of steel plates for naval applications and will potentially improve domestic production of welding and joining materials for other uses," Lass said. "Oak Ridge National Lab is a key partner in this work and the long-term goal is to pilot industrial upscaling."

Phases of production

While initial processing and validation of materials will begin on the campuses of UT and Mississippi State, larger-scale production will be located at a Rapid Applied Materials Processing lab on Navy property at President's Island in Memphis, Tennessee.

"This $5 million award can really move the needle on research in these areas," said James Andes, UT's director of national security research initiatives. "Combined with the opportunities of the RAMP lab, it allows for instrumentation and facilities we couldn't develop on our own."

The funding supports three years of research. In year one, the UT team will begin collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory on wire production and will explore multipass welding—joining thick plates of metal—and wire arc additive manufacturing of high-strength steels. In year two they will begin creation of new wire compositions and by year three they will use the technology to join plates of the new steel with new wire compositions. Mississippi State will research the development of stronger and lighter steel plate and will bring data science expertise to the project. As production grows to hundreds and thousands of pounds, work will move from campuses to the RAMP lab.

"This project is exciting not only because we are creating next-generation materials for the Navy, but because metallurgy is often seen as a mature technology that's overlooked when people think about manufacturing innovation," Lass said. "But the work we do in additive manufacturing can help our country advance in manufacturing and provides new opportunities for us as researchers."

Provided by University of Tennessee at Knoxville