Physcial Sciences Division
Newsmakers
August 2017
Friction Extrusion Appears on Wikipedia
"Friction Extrusion is a thermo-mechanical process that can be used to form fully consolidated wire, rods, tubes, or other non-circular shapes directly from a variety of precursor charges including powder, flake, machining waste (chips or swarf) or solid billet. The process imparts unique, and potentially, highly desirable microstructures to the resulting products," according to Wikipedia. The ultra-popular free encyclopedia now has detailed information about this extrusion process, including the technical contributions of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The ShAPE machine purchased through the Materials Synthesis and Simulation Across Scales Initiative (MS3) at PNNL is featured, as are images of magnesium tubes and data taken by scientists working on MS3. Three journal articles published about work done by the MS3 are referenced. Additional publications by PNNL scientists, working for DOE's Vehicle Technologies Office, are mentioned as well.