A paper co-authored by current and former NETL researchers was the most downloaded paper of 2024 published by The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society, an achievement that underscores the Lab’s prominence as a global leader in superalloy design.
The paper “Solving Recent Challenges for Wrought Ni-Base Superalloys,” which was co-authored by NETL researchers Martin Detrois and Paul Jablonski with retired NETL researcher Jeffrey Hawk, reviews the status of technology used to design and manufacture new wrought polycrystalline nickel-base superalloys for critical engineering applications, such as aerospace and energy.
Specifically, the team examined the development of superalloys that can operate reliably at higher temperatures, which improves the efficiency of aircraft engines and advanced power plants. The researchers stressed that successful alloys must be designed with manufacturability in mind.
“Improved alloy performance often comes from more complex alloy compositions,” Detrois said. “However, this complexity can make alloys harder to produce using standard processes like melting, forging and rolling. We must balance the desired high-temperature performance with the ability to cost effectively manufacture the alloys for practical use.”
The team noted that to develop successful alloys, researchers must consider these manufacturing challenges early in the design using computational tools to predict how the alloy will behave during production.
The article was first published in 2020, but has proven evergreen, continuously drawing readers since its release and becoming the most downloaded paper last year with readers accessing it more than 16,000 times. Furthermore, it has been downloaded more than 44,000 times in total, ranking as the top three most downloaded papers in the journal Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, one of the society’s publications, over the past five years.
NETL has a long history of advanced alloy research at its Albany, Oregon, site, stretching back to the 1943 establishment of its predecessor organization, Northwest Electro-Development Laboratory. Today, the Albany site is home to the Advanced Alloys Signature Center, a complete alloy development facility capable of prototyping alloys at scales that accelerate innovation and advance commercialization.
The Lab’s alloy development capabilities are anchored by the lab’s alloy ingot metallurgy (melting) and thermal-mechanical processing (forging and rolling). Combined with computational materials design and performance evaluation, NETL can provide alloy solutions enabling advanced energy systems and supporting the deployment of emerging technologies for U.S. industry.
NETL is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory dedicated to advancing the nation’s energy future by creating innovative solutions that strengthen the security, affordability and reliability of energy systems and natural resources. With laboratories in Albany, Oregon; Morgantown, West Virginia; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, NETL creates advanced energy technologies that support DOE’s mission while fostering collaborations that will lead to a resilient and abundant energy future for the nation.