Partnership produces powder progress

Heat exchanger specialist Conflux is among a small collection of promising Australian metal additive manufacturing startups to emerge in recent years.

In September they announced new fuel oil heat exchanger development for two variants of General Atomics’s remote piloted MQ-9B drone, extending a partnership with the US defence contractor dating back to 2018.

News of new hires and new projects seem to come through regularly from the company – led by ex-Formula One senior engineer Michael Fuller – which completed an $8.5 million Series A about a year ago.

One project announced earlier this year with Deakin University covers aluminium alloy development and heat treatment. The recently-concluded collaborative project ran nine months and was supported by a $138,200 grant from the Innovative Manufacturing CRC activate grant.

In this episode of @AuManufacturing Conversations With Brent Balinski, we hear from Conflux Additive Manufacturing Engineer Dr Ian Fordyce and Dr Balaji Narayanaswamy, an Associate Research Fellow at Deakin.

“Basically we’re at the mercy of what we can purchase to use as aluminium feedstock. These alloys aren’t really designed for heat exchange applications, so basically we’re motivated to say, ‘there must be better alloys that can be developed for our applications,’” explains Fordyce of the project.

This episode was recorded at the IMCRC’s Innovative Manufacturing Accelerated conference, held last week.

Episode guide

0:22 – Introduction to Dr Ian Fordyce and Dr Balaji Narayanaswamy.

2:10 – Why additive manufacturing can create better heat exchangers, and how Conflux designs these for customers.

4:02 – The motivation behind the alloy project.

5:02 – How they’re trying to improve on off-the-shelf powders.

6:45 – Stage of development. About to sift through test data and compare it standard alloys and high performance alloys. 

7:35 – How Conflux engages university researchers for projects.

8:42 – How innovation is understood by the two guests.

10:02 – Why manufacturing matters.

12:06 – Closing thoughts.

Further reading

CONFLUX AND DEAKIN BEGIN NINE-MONTH ALUMINIUM ALLOY DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

FRONTIERS IN ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING: THE CHALLENGES OF DESIGN, INNOVATION AND COMMERCIALISATION

CONFLUX TECHNOLOGY TO DEVELOP NEW FUEL OIL HEAT EXCHANGER WITH GENERAL ATOMICS

CONFLUX TECHNOLOGY RAISES $8.5M TO EXPAND

Picture: www.confluxtechnology.com