Terves Advancing High-Strength, Non-Flammable Nanostructured Magnesium Alloy Technology
Terves
LLC. (“Terves”)
is pleased to announce that it was selected by the U.S.
Army and Missile
Defense Agency to continue development of novel high-strength,
non-flammable, nanostructured magnesium alloys for light-weighting
applications. Terves
received the Department
of Defense (“DoD”) SBIR
(Small Business Innovative Research) support to enhance its
patent-pending cast and wrought Magnesium alloys derived from its high-temperature,
high-strength magnesium alloys currently used in oil and gas applications.
These new alloys, with further development, show tremendous potential to
save 30% or more in structural weight by replacing cast and wrought
2000, 6000, and 7000 series aluminum alloys in transportation, space,
and defense applications.
Replacing steel with aluminum can lead to an ~40% weight savings and
using magnesium alloys instead of aluminum can lead to a further weight
reduction of ~30%. According to McKinsey’s
report titled ‘Lightweight,
Heavy Impact’ the use of lightweight materials in just three
industries – automotive, aviation, and wind – will increase
significantly in volume over the next two decades, creating a market
impact of more than $400 billion.
“The very high strength, ductility, and mechanical durability at
elevated temperatures of these nanostructured low-density magnesium
alloys make them excellent candidates for aerospace, defense and
transportation lightweighting initiatives. The alloy series was
developed based on newly understood 'Long Period Stacking Order' (LPSO)
nanostructured phases that we have modified using reduced rare earth
contents and further microalloying additions to control flammability,
corrosion, and to strengthen the primary alpha phase. The resulting
product is a lightweight magnesium alloy casting or wrought product with
uniform high strength and ductility, directly comparable to the 7000
series aluminum alloys and a metal alternative to carbon fiber
composites. The efforts represent DoD-sponsored
collaborations initiated through our LIFT
(Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow) membership and networking
efforts, and we want to recognize LIFT
for that role. Specifically, the Missile
Defense Agency’s support funds a collaboration with Department
of Energy’s Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), who is helping us optimize
thermomechanical processing for producing very high-strength thin-walled
structures used in aerospace and defense structures; while the recently
selected Army
sponsored effort will fund a collaborative effort with Dr
Alan Luo’s group at The
Ohio State University to develop heat treatable alloy variants for
thick-section castings, die castings, plate, and forgings useful for
helicopter and potentially armor applications. The casting alloys have
the flexibility of being formed or heat treated to produce a final
product or produced net shape (such as by high pressure die-casting).
Numerous components on U.S. missile defense and fast response weapon
platforms would benefit from the reduced weight of higher-strength
wrought and cast Magnesium alloys while aerospace and transportation
applications would also see benefits. If these high strength and
ductility magnesium alloys can be produced at sufficiently low cost,
which we believe they can be, there will be a high driving force to use
these lightweight materials in many different industries,” said Mr.
Andrew Sherman, CEO, Terves.
“Terves
initially developed the magnesium
alloy family using novel galvanically active LPSO nanostructures to
create high-strength
dissolvable magnesium alloys used for making frac
balls, frac
plugs, and other dissolvable
downhole tools. Dissolvable
zonal isolation tools were adopted by the industry in 2013, and it
is expected that as volumes increase by wider adoption leading to
cost-reduction, more than 30% of the oilfield completion tools would be
replaced by self-clearing
dissolvable tools within the next 3 years. Expanding on this new
class of multifunctional
magnesium alloys with non-flammable, corrosion resistant, and
heat-treatable modifications enables expanded applications and is part
of Terves’
market diversification and magnesium
alloy technology leadership business strategies. Terves
has over a dozen issued and pending patent applications that cover
different magnesium
alloys, composites,
manufacturing techniques, and methods and applications of controlled
corrosion for use in freshwater,
low and high
temperature, and additional environments encountered in downhole and
aerospace industries. As a strong intellectual-property based,
product-focused organization, Terves
has the widest range of dissolvable
metal and dissolvable
elastomer products that allows it to be a partner of choice for
several of the leading oilfield tools and service companies,” continued
Mr. Sherman.
About Terves
Terves
is the technology and cost leader in the development, manufacturing and
sale of Engineered
Response™ smart materials for the oil and gas industry and advanced
magnesium alloys for lightweighting. Terves’
intelligent
materials sense and respond to their local wellbore environment to
“do more”, such as dissolve,
change
dimensions, generate
force or heat, modify chemistry, destroy bacteria, bond
together, or solubilize and disperse based on change in time,
temperature, pressure, PH, electrostatic charge, or other change in the
local environment.
Terves
is the leading manufacturer of magnesium dissolvable
metals and dissolvable
elastomers that are used for making frac
balls, plugs,
slips,
seals
and several other components used in oil and gas well completion and
production and have been used for completing tens of thousands of stages
in North America, Europe, South America, Asia and MENA regions. Terves’
oil and gas product portfolio also includes highly-engineered
specialty proppants, expandable
structural materials, acoustic
imaging tools, thermites and structural reactive materials, net-shaped
ceramic-metallic (cermet) nanocomposites and nanocomposite coatings,
and high
energy density supercapacitors. Terves
is a strong materials science research-based
and product-focused organization that works with oil
and gas majors, operators,
EPCs
and OEMs
to develop and commercialize compelling technologies, products and
capabilities for critical challenges in oil and gas exploration,
production and completion operations.
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View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180628005858/en/
Copyright Business Wire 2018
Source: Business Wire
(June 28, 2018 - 1:00 PM EDT)
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