June 28, 2018 - 1:00 PM EDT
Print Email Article Font Down Font Up
Terves Advancing High-Strength, Non-Flammable Nanostructured Magnesium Alloy Technology

EUCLID, Ohio

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.

Join our Contact List: <Get our press releases, newsletters and updates delivered to your email inbox>

Terves
Anupam Ghildyal, +1 216-375-6393
aghildyal@tervesinc.com


Source: Business Wire (June 28, 2018 - 1:00 PM EDT)

News by QuoteMedia
www.quotemedia.com

Legal Notice