FLASH® BAINITE — HIGH PERFORMANCE ARMOR

Gary Cola, Flash Bainite, Washington, MI

“This award provides small-scale manufacturers, the largest steel mills, and all in between the Flash knowledge to make everyday steel components stronger than titanium, lighter than aluminum, yet able to fold almost like paper. Migrating Flash Armor Technology to civilian markets will allow automotive, agricultural, architectural, shipping, and oil/gas infrastructure to be lightweight, yet stronger.”

The Flash® Bainite Process is a rapid heat treating process for creating steel that is stronger than titanium, lighter than aluminum, and made at lower cost than traditional high-strength steel. Flash Bainite steel, which was originally developed for the armor industry, is migrating to civilian uses such as automotive applications (safer/lighter crash structure), building/bridge construction (stronger), and even lawn edger blades (longer life).

The process creates an engineered micro-segregation of both the chemistry and microstructural phase at the micron level. With low total elongation, Flash steels exhibit excellent bendability, minimal thinning, and high energy absorption when formed into complex OEM geometries.

Costly alloying and time-consuming, capital- intensive thermomechanical processing are not required. Using industrial induction-heat and water-quench equipment configured and tuned for Flash processing parameters, off-the-shelf steel is rapidly heated (2- 3 seconds) to temperatures of about 1070 to 1200 °C. Within a few seconds, the heated steel is quenched with a water spray or bath. By limiting heating time, the natural heterogeneity of the steel is preserved to create a highly complex, multi-phase, multi-chemistry steel that combines the ductility of bainite and the strength of martensite.

Flash Bainite made from AISI 1020 is 1500 MPa, which is comparable to DP1000. Because of its higher strength, less Flash Bainite material is needed, and the end product/part weighs less. Off-the-shelf sheet, plate, and tubing can be made into Flash Bainite. It’s formable to 1T/Zero-T bend radii up to 1600 MPa, and can be welded with spot, laser, and gas metal arc welding (GMAW) using standard factory floor procedures. The steel is also hydro-formable to reasonable sweeps and complex cross sections.

For less than $0.15/lb., the proprietary Flash process transforms tubing and sheet/plates from

For more information, visit http://contest.techbriefs.com/aerodef_winner2016 

HONORABLE MENTIONS

New Wing Design Exponentially Increases Total Aircraft Efficiency

Albion (Al) Bowers and Peter Uden, NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA

An innovative, non-elliptical wing design employs fine wing adjustments to remove adverse yaw and increases aircraft efficiency by reducing drag. It optimizes the overall aircraft configuration by reducing the size of — or even removing entirely — the vertical tail and by reducing structural weight.

For more information, visit http://contest.techbriefs.com/wing 

SuperCritical Air Mobility Pack (SCAMP)

Harold Gier and Terence Gier, Niwot Technologies, LLC, Longmont, CO

The SuperCritical Air Mobility Pack (SCAMP) provides breathing air and full-body cooling for hazardous materials workers, firefighters, and others. SCAMP, which uses cryogenic technology, is a one-hour breathing/cooling apparatus in a package weighing less than 30 pounds, compared with up to 60 pounds for a conventional system.

For more information, visit http://contest.techbriefs.com/scamp 

InSpec Snapshot Surface Gauge

Erik Novak, Tim Horner, Joseph Moore, Brad Kimbrough, Mike Krell, Dmitriy Kiselev, and Shawn McDermed, 4D Technology, Tucson, AZ

The InSpec Snapshot Surface Gauge is a compact, vibration-immune 3D surface measurement system with micrometer-level resolution. The system’s polarization-based methods acquire all data in a single frame.

For more information, visit http://contest.techbriefs.com/inspec 

Automated Software System for the Simulation of Arcing in Spacecraft On Board Power Electronics Equipment

Vasily Kozhevnikov, Vadim Karaban, Denis Kosov, Andrey Kozyrev, Alexander Batrakov, Natalia Semeniuk, and Larisa Zjulkova, HCEI, Tomsk, Russia

An automated software system predicts the risk of electrical arcing in high-voltage onboard electronics intended for use in long-term, self-contained conditions, such as in spacecraft. The software reduces processing time by turning a large-scale 3D simulation into a limited set of fast 2D simulations.

For more information, visit http://contest.techbriefs.com/arcing