The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CESMII) recently announced nearly $10 million for ten projects to help advance its goals and enable U.S. manufacturers to develop and implement innovations that will advance U.S. manufacturing competitiveness, sustainability, and innovation.
On May 31, 2018, CESMII announced that Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA), was awarded $1 Million as the primary lead, together with the University of Virginia, the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM), Penn State and Arconic Inc.
The Virginia Tech-led team will demonstrate 15% reduction in energy consumption in energy intensive Thermo-Mechanical Processing of metals at Arconic facilities by monitoring critical manufacturing process parameters, utilizing cloud computing to sort, analyze and visualize the real-time data, and optimizing processing. The Virginia – Pennsylvania based team will develop optimization strategies (TRL 5 – 7) to improve recovery (ratio of product output over incoming raw material) and quality (rework elimination), which are anticipated to substantially reduce energy requirements, waste, and environmental impact. Successful demonstration of these converging technologies in a real factory setting will accelerate the development and deployment of such technologies across the U.S. manufacturing base.
“This Energy Efficient Material Processing through Automated Process Monitoring and Controls project will bring actionable data to Arconic, CESMII members, and the U.S. manufacturing base that will assist them in saving money and improving part quality. The project hits the sweet spot for CCAM in that it allows applied research to reach the factory floor,” says CCAM’s Director of Strategic Partnerships, Sydney G. Roberts, Ph.D.
The other nine recipients include: University of Connecticut (Storrs, Connecticut), Penn State University (New Kensington, Pennsylvania), ArcelorMittal (East Chicago, Indiana), Texas A&M Experimental Station (College Station, Texas), University of Louisville (Louisville, Kentucky), Honeywell (Plymouth, Minnesota), El Camino Community College (Hawthorne, California), University of California, Irvine (Irvine, California), and THINKIQ (Aliso Viejo, California).
Launched in 2016, CESMII focuses on bringing innovative smart manufacturing solutions to the marketplace to increase energy productivity, economic performance, and workforce capacity. CESMII is a part of Manufacturing USA, a network of regional institutes that have a specialized technology focus to increase U.S. manufacturing competitiveness and promote a robust and sustainable national manufacturing research and development infrastructure. CESMII is poised to play a key role in reducing global energy consumption while accelerating economic development.
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Media Contact:
Betsey Odell (804) 722-3744
betsey.odell@ccam-va.com
