“The Naval Surface Warfare Center and the Office of Naval Research knew the country needed to revitalize its capability to develop military-grade steel for submarines and ship hulls,” said Eric Lass, assistant professor of materials science at UT’s Tickle College of Engineering. 

Dayakar Penumadu, the Fred N. Peebles Professor and IAMM Chair of Excellence in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Bradley Jared, associate professor of mechanical, aerospace, and biomedical engineering; and Lass will focus on developing new steel materials, welding and strengthening mechanisms, and wire arc additive manufacturing. 

“The testing and development of new wire technology will allow better welding of steel plates for naval applications and will potentially improve domestic production of welding and joining materials for other uses,” Lass said. 

The university said the processing and validation of materials will begin on the campuses of UT and Mississippi State. Once ready for large-scale production, it will be moved to a rapid applied materials processing lab on Navy property at President’s Island in Memphis, Tenn. 

The funding will support three years of research. The UT team will begin to collaborate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the first year. 

At the start, their focus will be wire production, multipass welding and wire arc additive manufacturing of high-strength steels. In the second year, they will begin to create new wire compositions. By the third year, they intend to use the technology to join plates of the new steel with new wire compositions. 

Mississippi State said they will research the development of stronger and lighter steel plate and bring data science experts to the project. 

“The work we do in additive manufacturing can help our country advance in manufacturing and provides new opportunities for us as researchers,” Lass said.