Materials Science and Engineering Forging Stronger Links to Users (1999) / Chapter Skim
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2 Materials Development and Commercialization Process
2 Materials Development and Commercialization Process
Pages 12-43
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From page 12... ...
Rather, as the vignettes of this chapter and Chapter 3 show, the development of each and every material can seem to be a singular and unique sequence of activities. The first step in analyzing the linkages among the MS&E and end-user communities and identifying potential methods for strengthening these linkages to accelerate the implementation of laboratory discoveries is establishing a baseline definition of the materials development and commercialization processes.
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From page 13... ...
; tradition (e.g., reluctance to change established paradigms) ; and perceived adequacy of existing technologies industrial infrastructure, including capital investment in the current technology; narrow, periodic windows of opportunity that can be easily missed by purveyors of new technologies; fragmented structure of industry, which TABLE 2-1 Examples of Takeover Times and Substitution Midpoints Takeover Timea Substitution Substitution (years)
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From page 14... ...
For intake manifolds, for example, plastic versions were less expensive than the previous die-cast aluminum forms. For computer chips, copper interconnects allowed faster processing capabilities (Box 22~.
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From page 15... ...
A new material/process is not likely to be researched by the academic MS&E R&D community or adopted by industry unless it satisfies at least one of the perceived needs of both communities. CONCEPTUAL SCHEMA Materials development and commercialization processes are extraordinarily complex.
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From page 16... ...
Instead of trying to strengthen problematic grain boundaries, they thought it would be even better to eliminate the grain boundaries altogether. The inspiration came, in part, from the burgeoning silicon crystal industry, which was churning out salami-sized single crystals for the nascent microelectronics industry.
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From page 17... ...
Thermal barrier coatings add the challenge of understanding and controlling interfaces between the superalloy blade and the ceramic overcoat. Single-crystal technology is also being used by the power industry, which has been developing large, stationary turbine engines for generating electrical power.
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From page 18... ...
Because of the need to implement improved interconnect technology, copper interconnects were included in the industry road maps in the mid-1990s and the semiconductor industry consortium, SEMITECH, conducted research to try to scale-up the technology. And in late 1997, first IBM, and then other big league players in the semiconductor industry, revealed that more than a decade of research had finally opened the way to copper interconnects.
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From page 19... ...
As the pace of research at IBM picked up dramatically, a multidisciplinary group rapidly worked out research, development, and manufacturing details that led to the company's 1997 announcement of next-generation semiconductor chips with copper interconnects. All the signs of an industry-wide conversion are showing themselves.
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From page 20... ...
During all this time, the reputation of titanium aluminides as a brittle material persisted. Lipsitt recalls carrying lots of intricately shaped titanium aluminide parts in his briefcase to prove to people that these alloys indeed could be formed into usable components.
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From page 21... ...
Maintaining these engine speeds will be easier with lighter weight valves that have lower inertia, which will enable them to open and close faster. Major car companies have already tested valves made of titanium aluminides for this purpose, but the alloy's cost remains a barrier.
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From page 22... ...
Coolidge had been working on the tungsten filament problem for three years when he finally succeeded in making short lengths of thin tungsten wire by heating square ingots of the metal and pulling them through a succession of ever-smaller wire-drawing dies, all while keeping the metal hot. During these experiments, he discovered that the very process of deforming the ingot into thin wire had somehow made the tungsten ductile.
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From page 23... ...
Theoretical and laboratory work since the 1960s spelling out the physics and chemistry behind the original discovery have led to more deliberate methods of producing longlasting tungsten filaments. But every time someone in the world flicks on an incandescent light, the power and payoff of a well exploited accident show up literally like a light bulb.
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From page 24... ...
, and many years may pass before a profit is realized from a new process or material. Therefore, the following discussion of the various phases of the conceptual schema focuses mainly on the period between (1)
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From page 25... ...
E E _ E i, $ E o ~ &~ o o O $ {D E Jo 2 S 'it N O ~ =0 ~ E ~ E ~ E ~ E m, ~ e E _ iI E 15111 ° ° rim .
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From page 27... ...
Second, basic research increases the knowledge base on which the continued evolution and incremental improvements of current materials are based, as well as the discovery of leapfrog technologies that dramatically increase industrial competitiveness. Thus, even though some areas of basic research never lead to the application of new materials/processes into final products, they are still of great value to the MS&E community.
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From page 28... ...
Parallel attempts might be made to improve processing equipment and procedures. Toward the end of Phase 1, researchers often perform simple cost analyses based on laboratory processing to demonstrate the potential economic advantages of the new material/process over existing technologies.
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From page 29... ...
Depending on the industry, prototype production can range from proving that the material/process can be integrated into existing production methods to the fabrication of a pilot plant. Phase 2 R&D ends when the quantification of the business risk shows that the innovation has both scale-up potential and economic advantages, and industry decides to integrate the technology into a product.
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From page 30... ...
These materials triggered a worldwide competitive scramble in both basic and applied research for practical materials whose GMR effect would be large even at room temperature and small magnetic fields. One group at IBM made and tested about 30,000 different multilayer combinations using different elements and different layer thicknesses.
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From page 31... ...
So the same basic motivation that drove datastorage engineers to embrace MR materials and then GMR materials will eventually force them to abandon magnetic storage techniques altogether. Perhaps miniaturized atomic-force microscopes will one day be reading and writing a trillion bits of data, each one embodied by a cluster of atoms, all of them residing on a square inch of some yet to be identified storage medium.
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From page 32... ...
and masters theses; graduates Predominantly university and government research laboratories; some industrial laboratories Predominantly federal/state government; some private incus try; entrepreneurs Gatekeepers Predominantly federal/state government; some industry/consortia; research peers 3 to 10 years Time period FIGURE 2-5 Characteristics of material concept development (Phase 1~. The thickness of the line indicates the importance of the linkage.
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From page 33... ...
Overcoming the barriers to Phase 2 R&D is the most promising way to shorten the time to market of laboratory innovations. Based on the information provided at the workshops, the committee identified six principal barriers to the performance of Phase 2 R&D: variability and instability in funding; the high costs and long time frames associated with certification of materials/process technologies; the difficulty of accurately modeling implementation costs and demands for materials; the multidisciplinary nature of the R&D; the difficulty of mobilizing academic research; and the differences in end-user and research cycle times.
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From page 34... ...
In more conservative industries, the integration of a new material can take decades. Titanium aluminides lighter weight, higher temperature alloys for turbine engineshave been in development since the mid-1970s and are still not the stuff of airplanes.
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From page 35... ...
There also are a handful of sociological and economic factors that enable the semiconductor industry to compress Phases 2 and 3 of the materials development and commercialization cycle: It's a relatively young industry, on the early part of the "S"-shaped curve that depicts the development cycle of many industries, when rapid development is most likely.
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From page 36... ...
; quantification of business risk Output Internal industry reports; consortium sharing of database informa tion Principals Industrial R&D laboratories; industrial consortia; universities as subcontractors Funders Predominantly federal/state government; in-kind and small amount of financial support by industry, usually via consortia; entrepre neurs Gatekeepers Federal/state government; private industry via consortia Time period O to more than 20 years FIGURE 2-6 Characteristics of material process development (Phase 2~. The thickness of the line indicates the importance of the linkage.
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From page 37... ...
Linkages among universities, government research laboratories, and industry are thus important for amassing the required expertise. Some potential methods for promoting multidisciplinary research projects within and among universities, government laboratories, and industry and for promoting interaction are (1)
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From page 38... ...
Finding 2-11. Phase 2 R&D, which involves interacting with industry and other nonacademic organizations, is often hindered at universities because the traditional methods of evaluating research faculty for tenure do not value participation in Phase 2 research projects as highly as Phases 0 and 1 projects.
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From page 39... ...
This allows manufacturers to take advantage of work performed by others to improve products and provides the materials supplier an opportunity to recoup a portion of the development costs. An example of this mechanism is the use of advanced structural materials in consumer sporting equipment (e.g., carbon composite rackets and golf club shafts
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From page 40... ...
Another key to the rapid development of TWBs was the creation in 1992 of the TWB Company a joint venture between Worthington Steel, a major intermediate steel processor based in Columbus, Ohio, and Germanbased Thyssen Krupp-Stahl AG, which had pioneered TWB-technology in the early 1980s. In 1997, several major steel companies joined the company as limited partners, accelerating further diffusion of the technology through the entire manufacturing chain.
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From page 41... ...
MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT AND COMMERCIALIZATION PROCESS 4 Laser-welded door inner panel. Source: TWB Company.
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From page 42... ...
Because product development cycle times are currently being decreased, actual R&D cannot be conducted TABLE 2-2 Characteristics of Product Development Phase (Phase 4) Intent Product concept to product design to production Starting point Product concept End point Product production Output Full scale-up (only troubleshooting R&D is performed because cycle time is short)
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From page 43... ...
Funders Predominantly industry via internal funding; federal end-users (e.g., DOD, NASA) ; venture capitalists Gatekeepers Industry management; federal end-users Time period 2 to 5 years FIGURE 2-7 Characteristics of transition to production (Phase 3~.
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