Top 5 in 365—Articles about metals and materials

A VFAW system joined this 5xxx-series aluminum (top) to a 3xxx-series aluminum (middle) and low-carbon steel (on the bottom).

The last installment of “Top 5 in 365” showcased the five most-popular articles on thefabricator.com published within the last year about materials handling. Previous installments have focused on bending and folding, laser cutting, arc welding, assembly and joining, automation and robotics, consumables, cutting and welding prep, finishing, and manufacturing software. This post is about the metals and materials category on the website.

The metals/materials technology area has information on the most commonly used materials in metal fabrication ̶ carbon steels; stainless steels; high-strength, low-alloy steels (HSLAs); and the 6000 series aluminum ̶ and those that aren't as common, such as the red metals, refractory metals, titanium, and magnesium.

Here are the top five most-read articles in the past year about metals and materials.

5. Improve stainless, nickel alloy scrap ROI
Segregating, labeling scrap can bring better profit

Stamping manufacturers that generate stainless steel and high-nickel alloy scrap can increase the return on their material investment easily. They can attain higher value from their scrap by following a few simple guidelines.

4. Which material test methods best influence metal forming success?
Question convention in an age of change

The many recent changes in sheet metal forming make us all feel a bit uncomfortable about the depth of our knowledge. In the past 20 to 30 years, the industry introduced hundreds of new grades of steel; aluminum became more common in automotive applications; warm and hot forming introduced time and temperature requirements to forming operations; machine suppliers introduced new forming technologies; and manufacturing automation continued to evolve.

With so many choices of materials and processes, it’s often difficult to choose the right approach. Often, even the experts don’t know which options are ideal for a given situation.

3. Leveling for metal fabricators: Know the material you’re buying
Greater knowledge of leveling leads to better purchasing

For most in metal fabrication, material remains the most significant item on the books. In the “2017 Financial Ratios & Operational Benchmarking Survey” from the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association Intl. (FMA), the average of direct material costs from respondents was 34 percent of sales. That’s more than all labor costs, both direct and indirect.

Some high-end fabricators—say, high-end weld shops serving the aerospace and defense sectors—may well have much higher direct labor costs. But by and large, paying for material involves the largest checks most fabricators regularly write. It’s no wonder they try to get the best deal they can.

2. Vaporizing foil actuator welding: Joining by impact
How a new process welds the previously unweldable

Engineers during the Great War noticed something odd about the shrapnel that stuck to armored tanks: It wasn’t simply inserted into the tank’s side. Force from the impact caused material on the tank and shrapnel to fuse together. That is, the impact created a weld.

From this came a process now known as explosion welding. To perform it, a controlled detonation forces one workpiece into another workpiece at high velocity. Patented by DuPont in the 1960s, explosion welding proved to be a good way to join two or more metals that couldn’t be easily or efficiently welded by traditional methods like arc welding.

1. An overview of laser metal deposition
This emerging technology is not just for very large manufacturers

Laser metal deposition (LMD) is an emerging technology being adopted to augment, and in some cases replace, traditional methods for the remanufacturing, laser cladding, and 3-D printing of metallic parts. It holds the potential to save manufacturers time and money when applied in the right situations.

So how does it work? LMD, also known as directed energy deposition (DED), uses a system in which metallic powders contained in one or more hoppers are blown through a deposition nozzle and heated with a laser to produce a metallic bead. The motion system lays the metallic beads down, layer upon layer, to build up a part or to add layers of material to an existing part.

Next up? Plasma cutting.