Principal investigators: Saeed Tiari and Davide Piovesan
University: Gannon University
Industry partner: PSNergy
Pennsylvania has a high concentration of metals-processing companies that frequently utilize low and high-temperature heat-treating processes. Improved heat treatment process control would beneficially impact the competitiveness of these companies. One opportunity to improve process control would involve a low-cost method to frequently and accurately measure actual product temperature during heat-treating; but, this requires the capability to effectively place a measurement sensor onto complex shapes, and insulate it from being damaged by high temperatures. Gannon University and PSNergy are current partners in researching a method to measure the temperature of steel tubes as they are heat treated. Early work has identified solid-carbon foam as a likely and effective high-temperature insulator. This proposed project, as part of this research, will explore repurposing Beer Spent Grain (BSG) as a fire-resistant carbon-foam insulation capable of being fashioned into complex shapes via additive manufacturing.