EWI is pleased to return to the Defense Manufacturing Conference (DMC) taking place December 3-6 at the Music City Center in Nashville, TN.

During the technical program, EWI Senior Technology Advisor Larry Brown will present “Cold Spray Development Opportunities and Applications for DOD,” Thursday, December 6 from 1:30-2:00pm. In addition, Mark Norfolk, President of EWI affiliate Fabrisonic, will present “Solid State 3D Printing of Metals,” Wednesday December 5 from 2:30-3:00pm.

Several EWI Associates will be on-hand to meet with event attendees to discuss how EWI services can benefit materials joining and defense manufacturing challenges.

Please be sure to stop by Exhibit Booth #528 to learn about EWI’s technical innovations for the Defense industry. If you would like to schedule a time to meet with an EWI Associate at DMC, contact Mark Schimming, VP Government Programs at [email protected] or 614.688.5139.

 

 

 

 

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Recently, the EWI Ohio facility was pleasantly surprised with an opportunity to consign a cobot for a week.  What I thought was going to be a 2-hour demo visit turned into a lovely, 5-day friendship with a UR5 robot.  Initially, we set it up in an office cubicle because it was small, easy to program and let’s face it, kinda cute!  Several colleagues came to see it because I had boasted about how easy it was to carry, program and use.  But then, just like that visiting exchange student in junior high school, my new friend became WAY more popular than me.  The next think I knew, it had booked a few jobs with different engineering groups, and then I never saw it again.

First, it went to the microjoining lab.  Tim Frech needed some help with some small-scale resistance welds on thin sheet.  No problem for the cobot.  Tim was able to tell it what to do without any formal course in speaking ROBOT.  Good job, little buddy (the cobot, not Tim)!

 

 

Next, Clare Gu decided to challenge it– “John Henry” style.  She made some measurements of material tensile properties using her 3MA, hand-held sensor.  Next, she strapped the sensor to the cobot, and taught it to make the same measurements.  Guess who was more repeatable?  Robo-power wins!  This little cobot was immediately useful right from the start.  It was easy to carry, simple to program and became a valuable tool in our manufacturing toolbox.

We are now working on a tele-welding application, and hope to make use of our new cobot friend when the project takes off. If you’d like to hear more about this or other remote automation innovations at EWI, contact me at [email protected] or 614.688.5247.

Connie Reichert LaMorte, Principal Engineer for Design, Controls & Automation, is a specialist in the areas of laser-based vision, control systems and adaptive welding.

 

 

 

 

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EWI welcomes Magna Cosma International to membership. The global company provides a comprehensive range of metal body systems, components, assemblies and modules, including complete vehicle frames, with the goal of bringing lightweight and innovative products to market. Headquartered in Canada, the organization has locations throughout North America, South America, Europe and Asia.

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At EWI, we engage with various industries through our broad client base.  We see, first hand, the diversity of challenges faced by manufacturers in all sectors. As a result, our engineering teams have the opportunity to participate in a diversity of technology development projects and provide innovative manufacturing solutions across industry.

EWI also works proactively to learn about new capabilities and technology so we can make strategic investments to increase our relevancy to industry.  With that in mind, EWI recently published Manufacturing Processes: Surface Engineering and Cold Spray Technology.  Within this article was a request to complete a survey that asked the question, “What are your company’s surface engineering needs?”

Responses revealed interest in new investigations into surface treatments i.e. plasma, laser, mechanical, and coatings.  Cold spray technology was viewed as an up-and-coming technology that needs more attention, both in technology awareness and coating performance.

As a result, EWI is now directing IR&D projects to evaluate new surface treatment for dissimilar joining of polymers to metal and ceramic to metal, and to explore cold spray technology as both a coating and additive manufacturing process.

To those of you who participated in the survey, thank you for your feedback.  If you did not respond but would like to add you input, you can take the survey now by clicking here.

If you have questions or want to learn more about EWI’s research and project work in surface engineering, please contact Larry Brown at [email protected] or 614.688.5059.

 

 

 

 

 

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