The first year of the FORGE project aimed to build solid basis for developing effective CCM material solutions. All the partners were involved in defining the needs for the Energy Intensive Industries, especially those represented in FORGE. From this analysis, the project defined the use case demonstrator and other potential application scenarios for the materials developed in FORGE. The project also defined the elements to be use for the formulation of Compositionally Complex Alloys and Compositionally Complex Ceramic and the Key Performance Indicators for the project stages.
The iterative work of material modelling and experimental validation for both CCA and CCC provided the first Machine Learning Algorithms, which were released once trained with data available from the literature.
The experimental activity took most of the effort to complete the datasets, with the challenges implied in the synthesis and characterization of CCA and CCC compositions completely unknown before.
Thirty CCA alloys, selected among the predictions of the first ML algorithm, were synthesized by Induction Melting, or Arc Melting. Tens of material libraries were synthesized by PVD, with more than 60 different compositions in each material library.
Eighty CCC were formulated and realized with Sol-Gel and direct dry powder mixing techniques. This led to a set of about 160 samples that have been fired at increasing temperatures (1300, 1500, 1700) to identify which conditions lead to the formation of a single-phase CCC.
The characterization performed on CCC and CCA determines the dataset for the next iterations of the ML models.
The identification of promising CCA and CCC allowed FORGE to move into the second phase of the project, which involved the synthesis of the new material, by Mechanical Alloying, and the production of thick coating by multiple deposition techniques: Laser Cladding, HVOF, HVAF, Cold Spraying.
The processes for the synthesis of the compositionally complex material as feedstock and their following deposition were developed and optimised to work at a pilot industrial scale, enabling eventually the production components and coupons to be tested in the harsh environments of Energy energy-intensive industries.
High Sliding Wear during Aluminium Extrusion, Abrasion in the piping of Cement production plants, the Corrosive environment found in plants for Carbon Capture and Storage, the high temperature of ceramic Kilns and the embrittlement caused by H2 used in Steel industries were all part of the field test stand by FORGE's materials.
