Integrated Manufacturing Technology Initiative (IMTI)
IMTI is a non-profit, member-based organization that connects its members to significant resources that advance manufacturing technologies. Our members come from a variety of industry and government agencies but all share the common goal of wanting to make better technology decisions today and for the future. We are dedicated to connecting, motivating, facilitating, and enabling solutions that help organizations make better manufacturing technology investments.
IMTI was created in January 2000 as a member based organization to bring together industry, academic, and government entities to support and strengthen the nation's manufacturing community. A powerful partnership combining the knowledge and expertise of public and private organizations, IMTI includes five federal agencies and leading companies such as Rockwell Collins and Procter & Gamble
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
ORNL's High Temperature Materials Laboratory (HTML) is a DOE User Facility designed to help solve materials problems that limit the efficiency and reliability of automotive systems, including propulsion and chassis systems. HTML includes six user centers available to researchers in industry, universities, and federal laboratories. The program has two major objectives: Conduct research that will assist U.S. industry in meeting challenges from foreign competitors in materials related to transportation and assist in educating and training materials researchers.
Depending on the material involved, machining can comprise more than 70% of the cost of a part. Therefore, to enable advanced, high-performance materials like structural ceramics and metal matrix composites to be economically viable, efficient machining processes with high material removal rates are needed. Experienced Friction, Wear and Machinability Center (FWMUC) staff works with users to tailor machining methods to the kind of material and desired shapes. Our special expertise is in grinding and single-point turning. Instrumented machine tools enable the mechanics of grinding processes to be documented and the results studied. Our machine tools include an E. O. Lee creep-feed grinder, a Weldon cylindrical grinder, and a Precitech diamond turning machine.
Machinability is a characteristic of a material that depicts its ability to be formed and finished by traditional machining methods. Developed especially for ceramics, the Chand Grindability Testing machine uses a fast-moving abrasive belt to obtain numerical indices of a material's ease of grinding. Rapid tests use simple test bars and a timed loading cycle. Users can compare their material's data to that from a variety of other materials tested in the same manner.
Our extensive set of friction, wear, and hardness testing tools and analytical capabilities has been developed with support from a variety of Department of Energy and other-agency programs. Some instruments, like the pin-on-disk testers, reciprocating pin-on-flat wear machines, and the continuous-loop abrasion tester, are more generic in nature. Other instruments, like the repeated impact tester for valve materials and the sub-scale brake material tester, have been custom-built to simulate specific applications. ORNL has long been a participant in ASTM standardization efforts and has led the development of four standards for friction, wear, and scratch hardness testing.
While most of our equipment is configured to study sliding friction and wear, we can also evaluate abrasive wear, slurry wear, rolling contact, and repeated impact damage. Room temperature and elevated temperature microindentation hardness testers, two scratch testers, and a mini-viscometer to characterize test oils support the friction and wear effort. The FWMUC staff works with HTML users to select the appropriate friction and wear test methods. Then we help to interpret the results of those experiments based on decades of experience that spanning from fundamental surface science to applied engineering.
Return to topOak Ridge Tool - Engineering (ORT-E)
ORTE's core business includes custom design of mechanical equipment, fabricated metal products, and precision tooling and components for the Aerospace, Defense, and Energy markets.
We are located on a 42-acre site in Oak Ridge, TN, with over 104,000-sq. ft. under roof. We have 24,000 sq. ft. for Administrative and Engineering Offices, 40,000 sq. ft. for Machining, 20,000 sq. ft. for Fabrication, 10,000 sq. ft. for Receiving/Storage, 6,000 sq. ft. for Assembly and Test, and 4,000 sq. ft. for Inspection. The environment in each area is controlled for precise measurement, inspection, and verification.
Our Fabrication Area is equipped with a plate bender, shear, and saw, thermal cutting equipment, GTAW and GMAW equipment. Our Machining Area is equipped with 4-axis CNC mills, 2-axis CNC lathes, a 2-½ axis CNC, wire EDM machine, and manual turning and grinding capacity up to 100" diameter and 65 ft. long. Milling capacity ranges from 20" x 40" Mazak AJV25, with high-speed spindle and high-pressure through spindle coolant, to a 96" x 120" 4-axis CNC Cincinnati-Gilbert HBM.
Our Tool Room is equipped with Moore precision jig grinding and boring equipment. Our Inspection Lab is fully equipped with measuring and inspection equipment calibrated to NIST standards, including a Cordax CMM.
Technicians install International Space Station hardware on stand-off assembly in ORT-E's state-of-the-art clean room.
Oak Ridge Tool-Engineering (ORT-E) has been meeting the needs of the aerospace, defense, energy, and automotive industries worldwide for more than three decades. Its mission: to provide the highest quality precision tooling, machining, fabrication, engineering, manufacturing, and testing-on time, every time.
Located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, ORT-E is ideally situated for industry and innovation. Headquartered within 500 miles of 70 percent of the nation's industrial base, ORT-E is linked to the world through the most modern air, rail, barge, and interstate services available.
The area's concentration of major high-tech companies, ongoing research and development, and Oak Ridge's National Laboratory further strengthens ORT-E's competitive advantage and greatly benefits its customers. The operation has access to a tremendous pool of talented engineers, scientists, and inventors, many of whom are on call to meet the needs of ORT-E's diverse international clientele.
ORT-E's modern, multi-axis CNC machines allow the company's highly trained professionals to perform tasks once thought to be impossible.
Since 1963 ORT-E has continually grown and adapted to meet the ever-changing demands of its worldwide clients. Through its unique full-service approach-handling every detail from concept through completion-the company has built an unsurpassed reputation for precision, quality, and excellence. The Oak Ridge headquarters represents a complete high-tech operation ready to meet the needs of its diverse customers.
Through its unique full-service approach-handling every detail from concept through completion-the company has built an unsurpassed reputation for precision, quality, and excellence. The Oak Ridge headquarters represents a complete high-tech operation ready to meet the needs of its diverse customers.
ORT-E is equipped to provide on-site equipment and systems engineering; complex machining, tooling, and fabrication; the manufacturing and assembly of special machines; and high-tech laser component manufacturing and maintenance.
ORT-E and its team of highly trained engineers, certified welders, and technicians maintain total direction over every project.
The ORT-E team takes pride in following the latest QA procedures for design, purchasing, production, and testing according to military, NPC, and ASME codes. As a Mil-1-45208 certified company, and currently adapting to ISO 9000 specifications, ORT-E is qualified to perform computer coordinate measuring and vacuum leak, optical, and magnetic particle testing. No other firm of its size can match ORT-E's quality control and testing facilities.
University of Tennessee
Engine Testing: The College of Engineering has an engine laboratory devoted to engine testing located in the Mechanical Engineering building on the Knoxville campus. In addition, a chassis dynamometer is located in an adjacent laboratory. The total floor space in this facility dedicated to automotive testing is approximately 2600 square feet. Available equipment includes engines, dynamometers, engine analyzers, emission measurement instruments, and other miscellaneous testing equipment. At the National Transportation Research Center (NTRC), the University has an additional engine dynamometer test cell equipped with complete emissions testing and analysis equipment including dilution tunnels, data acquisitions systems, chemistry laboratory, and spectroscopy equipment. The College also has a 3500 sq. ft. vehicle laboratory, well equipped with various machine tools, that supports student projects. In order to assist in the conduct of experimental work, the Mechanical Engineering Department has complete machine shop facilities staffed by three full-time machinists. Additionally, a full-time electronics technician is available for consultation.
Combustion Modeling: The College of Engineering has experts in thermal fluid systems that address engineering issues in the area of heat transfer and fluid dynamics through a coordinated research effort that involves national laboratories and industry. This includes combustion, thermo-chemical non-equilibrium flows numerical simulation of combustion and chemical non-equilibrium flows in propulsion and power generation systems; Application of finite difference methods to combustion, heat transfer and phase change problems, and microscale investigation of thermo-fluid transport and chemical non-equilibrium behavior in boundary layers.