Delta Platform for Enhanced Scanning & Vibration Mitigation
TECHNOLOGY/LICENSING OPPORTUNITY
Delta Platform for Enhanced Scanning & Vibration Mitigation
Augmented with a Unique Mechanism Enabling Platform Degree of Freedoms
Opportunity: Idaho National Laboratory (INL), managed and operated by Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC (BEA), is offering the opportunity to enter into a license and/or collaborative research agreement to commercialize this Delta Platform technology for Enhanced Scanning and Vibration Mitigation.
Background: Current motion platforms have a problem activating degrees of freedom without restricting movement or occupying the workspace above the platform. INL had several applications where it would be desirable to actuate degrees of freedom from the platform without having to account for excess weight on the platform due to an added actuator or the spatial interference and routing issues generated by conventional mechanical, electrical or hydraulic lines methods to actuate such actuators. These devices have a very large footprint and utilize underwater motors and complex, cumbersome, and rigid mechanics which are difficult to interface with and maintain.
Description: Researchers at INL have developed a device that enables a typical linear delta platform with additional degrees of freedom on the platform activated using a novel mechanism. For each added platform degree of freedom, a rotationally enabled shaft, parallel to the delta platform’s linear actuators, is run. This then converts that rotational motion to rotational motion of another shaft traversing from the carriage to the platform, and then making that motion available to operate a mechanism. It essentially moves with the linear actuator carriages and in concert with the parallel linkages. Thus, it does not restrict the displacement capabilities of the platform or interfere with the workspace above the platform.
Applications: Any translation/orientation applications (e.g. material handling, scanning, additive manufacturing, automated welding, pick and place, etc.), which employ linear and/or rotational delta platforms can benefit from this mechanism. The INL applications which this system was devised includes the scanning of a submerged radiological sample and the embedment of material in a granular medium via vibrational inputs. The mechanism allows the scanning system to translate the entire 15-feet distance below the water surface necessary to protect the user from radiation exposure while still having readily available degrees of freedom at its platform throughout the travel. The mechanism allows material embedment (e.g. a fiber optic line) in medium (e.g. concrete, sand, etc.) because it can actuate a vibrating degree of freedom on the platform while positioning the material embedment head in the medium. The vibration mode may also be of use to additive manufacturing linear delta systems that already have to account for the weight and spatial constraints associated with the extrusion head.
Advantages: Benefits include increased workspaces, reduced load path inertia, removal of driving motors from hazards near platform, and vibration mitigation. It utilizes more enabled motors and components enabled with applying high speed, high precision, and high force. It can retain a relative vibrational displacement.
Impact: The device allows a delta system to achieve the same function as if an actuator(s) were attached to the platform but with smaller motors and less spatial restrictions. Such conditions improve the cost and space efficiency of task execution (e.g. smaller motors cost less and larger workspace to device size allows more compact, less expensive, versions of a system to be deployed with similar product outcomes).
Development: The device has been modeled and proof of concept has been completed.
IP Status: US Patent Application 16/191,047, “Linear Delta Systems With Additional Degrees of Freedom and Related Methods.”
INL is seeking to license the above intellectual property to a company with a demonstrated ability to bring such inventions to the market. Exclusive rights in defined fields of use may be available.
Please visit Technology Deployment’s website at https://inl.gov/inl-initiatives/technology-deployment for more information on working with INL and the industrial partnering and technology transfer process.
Companies interested in learning more about this licensing opportunity should contact Kala Majeti at suryakala.majeti@inl.gov.
BA-1013 Department of Energy
1/6/20, 11:50 AM Overlapping Linear Delta Robotic Systems Achieving Relative Motion
TECHNOLOGY/LICENSING OPPORTUNITY
Overlapping Linear Delta Robotic Systems
Achieving Relative Motion
Opportunity: Idaho National Laboratory (INL), managed and operated by Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC (BEA), is offering the opportunity to enter into a license and/or collaborative research agreement to commercialize the Overlapping Linear Delta Robotic Systems technology.
Background: Currently, there is a need to apply and/or monitor the displacement, force, and vibration of components in confined environments. Confined environments significantly limit the available deformation and thus the breadth of structural or sensor studies. Such limits disallow a full understanding of a component’s structural performance or a sensor’s abilities/limitations. Typical deflection methods fix one end and deflect the other end and implement mechanisms other than the linear delta platform (typically linear slides in a Cartesian type configuration). The linkage configuration attached to each platform prevents platform rotation and enables pure 3D translations.
Description: Researchers at INL have developed a method used to address these issues. This method is the employment of two linear delta deflection systems to control unique relative motion capabilities between the two system platforms. Independently, the two linear delta systems operate in the same manner as conventional linear delta systems where the linear actuator inputs cause the universal end joint enabled linkages to be moved in a fashion that displaces the platform in controlled fashions. By placing the two platforms near each other, it allows the two platforms to move relative to each other, thus generating the target relative motion and all the benefits listed below.
Applications: This technology will be of most interest to the robotics, manufacturing, human machine interfaces, additive manufacturing, vibration testing/isolation, and sensor research/employment industries. The relativity concept may also apply to other 1-D to X-D system platforms (e.g. serial arm, gantry, etc.) with the same benefits described below.
Advantages: This system embodies the stiffness, speed, and precision benefits of linear delta systems while utilizing the relativity between the platforms and simple system re-configurability to increase the workspace, speed, and force application, while reducing various dynamic effects without increasing the general footprint of a single linear delta device. The relativity between the platforms is also beneficial in mitigating the adverse consequences of vibrations to components while still maintaining their primary functionality (e.g. precision of ball screws which would pit between the ball and screw under vibrational loadings).
Impact: Many of the advantages listed above are improved by a factor of 4 rather than just 2 as might be expected when the system is doubled with two linear delta deflection systems. This system can increase the workspace of a single device by a factor of 4+, speed by a factor of 2, force application by 2, and reduce various dynamic effects (e.g. drag) by a factor of 4+ due to the square of the speed term. This factoring could also be used in reverse, allowing a system to reduce its footprint and its component sizes while maintaining the same performance. Despite the number of components being doubled, they can be smaller in size which can result in a reduction in costs.
Development: A functioning prototype is in place.
IP Status: US Patent Application No. 16/191,093, “Dual Linear Delta Assemblies, Linear Delta Systems, and Related Methods.”
INL is seeking to license the above intellectual property to a company with a demonstrated ability to bring such inventions to the market. Exclusive rights in defined fields of use may be available.
Please visit Technology Deployment’s website at https://inl.gov/inl-initiatives/technology-deployment for more information on working with INL and the industrial partnering and technology transfer process.
Companies interested in learning more about this licensing opportunity should contact Kala Majeti at suryakala.majeti@inl.gov.
BA-1029 Department of Energy
1/6/20, 11:56 AM Graphite Fabrication Via Spark Plasma Sintering
TECHNOLOGY/LICENSING OPPORTUNITY
Fabrication of Graphite by Spark Plasma Sintering
Opportunity: Idaho National Laboratory (INL), managed and operated by Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC (BEA), is offering the opportunity to enter into a license and/or collaborative research agreement to commercialize the Fabrication of Graphite by Spark Plasma Sintering technology.
Background: Graphite is commonly used in a number of energy and engineering applications. However, many such applications require the graphite material to be high-purity and densified. Existing methods to produce densified graphite include pressing, extrusion, or sintering. However, these techniques tend to be limited in their application for wide-scale production and are often limited by excessive costs with scale up and density. For example, scaling up these conventional techniques requires a series of time-intensive steps, such as steps with high-temperatures, high-pressures, and long annealing times (e.g., several days) to cure final materials, which may or may not fail during the process. These challenges also raise the potential for costly overruns and lost time. Moreover, conventional techniques may form graphite materials that suffer a loss in density after fabrication.
Description: Researchers at INL have developed a process using spark plasma sintering (SPS) to fabricate high-density graphite structures. The method comprises subjecting raw graphite to an electrical current, to drive a rise in temperature not exceeding about 1200°C, and a pressure not exceeding about 300 MPa to sublimate the raw material into a high-density graphite structure.
Applications: Interested industries may include graphite fabrication as well as industries that use graphite to construct other things. Some industries may include the primary electrode material in batteries, brake linings, carbon brushes in electric motors, grinding/lubricants, molds for castings, and the refractory material in furnaces.
Advantages: As mentioned, this process allows the graphite to be produced with less energy and less time. The process requires lower temperature and pressure than other methods.
Impact: The lower temperatures and pressures result in savings in both energy and time. In other methods, the same high temperatures and pressures result in time and energy intensive additional steps that would not be necessary with INL’s process.
Development: TRL 5. This process has been validated at bench scale.
IP Status: US Patent Application No. 62/850,344, “Spark Plasma Sintering Methods for Fabricating Dense Graphite,” BEA Docket No. BA-1080.
Also see publication:
Aguiar, J. A., Kwon, S., Coryell, B., Eyerman, E., Bokov, A., Castro, R. H. R., … Luther, E. (2019, December 2). Densification of Graphite under High Pressure and Moderate Temperature. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352492819307524.
INL is seeking to license the above intellectual property to a company with a demonstrated ability to bring such inventions to the market. Exclusive rights in defined fields of use may be available.
Please visit Technology Deployment’s website at https://inl.gov/inl-initiatives/technology-deployment for more information on working with INL and the industrial partnering and technology transfer process.
Companies interested in learning more about this licensing opportunity should contact Jon Cook at jonathan.cook@inl.gov.
BA-1080 Department of Energy
1/6/20, 11:20 AM Linear Delta Robot Platform for Increased Workspace and Mobility
TECHNOLOGY/LICENSING OPPORTUNITY
Linear Delta Robot Platform
Modified for Increased Workspace and Mobility
Opportunity: Idaho National Laboratory (INL), managed and operated by Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC (BEA), is offering the opportunity to enter into a license and/or collaborative research agreement to commercialize the Linear Delta Robot Platform technology.
Background: Non-Destructive Examination (NDE) scanning systems have many applications including pipeline welds, magnetic resonance imaging, airplane turbine blades, and reactor fuel. Conventional NDE systems with ample levels of precision, speed, and flexibility are often large, bulky, and relatively immobile, thus requiring items of interest to first fit within a size constraint and be transported to the system. A new platform is needed that can produce the same precision, speed, and flexibility without requiring an overly large and immobile design.
Description: Researchers at INL have developed a modified Linear Delta Robot platform to overcome the limitations of conventional NDE systems. Linear Delta Robots have previously not been adopted in such applications because their kinematics are rather complex, and their conventional workspace is limited by their surrounding guideposts. INL’s platform locates all the linear motors on one side of the workspace, thus centralizing the geometry and system weight and making it more geometrically and inertially compact. Consequently, the available workspace formerly blocked by the posts becomes available, the device can be deployed in more restricted locations, and the configuration allows longer linear rails to be employed, which can reach into constrained environments (e.g. underwater radiological environment).
Applications: Applications include Non-Destructive Examination (NDE) systems, 3D additive manufacturing, welding and user interfaces.
Advantages: The INL system’s compact form factor promises high mobility and more accommodating to the size, orientation, and location of objects which it will interact with while still maintaining the stiffness, precision, and speed of a conventional serial style scanning system.
Impact: This solution’s compact form factor improves the workspace, versatility, and mobility of conventional delta and steward platforms while maintaining the high precision and speed characteristics, which make them prominent in pick-and-place operations, additive manufacturing, and precision positioning systems. The geometric augmentation allows these benefits to be realized by the enormous number of applications satisfied by serial arm and gantry type robots.
Development: The device has been fabricated and developed to full functionality.
IP Status: US Patent Application No. 16/191,135, “Linear Delta Systems, Hexapod Systems, and Related Methods.”
INL is seeking to license the above intellectual property to a company with a demonstrated ability to bring such inventions to the market. Exclusive rights in defined fields of use may be available.
Please visit Technology Deployment’s website at https://inl.gov/inl-initiatives/technology-deployment for more information on working with INL and the industrial partnering and technology transfer process.
Companies interested in learning more about this licensing opportunity should contact Kala Majeti at suryakala.majeti@inl.gov.
BA-1023 Department of Energy
1/6/20, 11:53 AM ALS-U Cosmic MonoChromator
OVERVIEW & BACKGROUND
The upgraded ALS (ALS-U) is designed to be unsurpassed by any currently envisioned technology and will enable world-leading soft x-ray science for years to come. In June 2016, DOE’s Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC) released the recommendations of the BES Facility Upgrade Prioritization Subcommittee, whose report deemed the ALS-U project “absolutely central” to contribute to world-leading science and “ready to initiate construction”—the highest possible ratings in the prioritization process. In September 2016 DOE initiated the ALS-U project by approving its “mission need” and assigning it critical decision CD-0, the first milestone in making ALS-U a reality. In September 2018 DOE approved the critical decision CD-1 which establishes the conceptual design and the cost range of the project. In December 2020, critical decision CD-3a approval authorizes to start the construction of the accumulator ring. The project team is currently working towards completing of the preliminary design phase by the end of 2020.
The ALS-U project includes a package of new and upgraded insertion device beamlines that are intended to leverage the enormous gains in coherent brightness provided by the new source. The package consists of two new beamlines, and upgrades to two existing beamlines:
Flexon, a soft X-ray beamline covering an energy range of 400-1800eV with two major branches
Tender, a tender X-ray beamline covering an energy range of 1-8keV with two major branches
Cosmic, an upgraded soft X-ray beamline with one branch
Maestro, an upgraded soft X-ray beamline with two branches
To this end, the ALS-U project includes the procurement of 5 new monochromators: two VIA-VLS monochromators for Flexon, one VIA-VLS monochromator and one DCM111 monochromator for Tender, one VIA-VLS monochromator for Cosmic. Maestro will reused its existing monochromator.
We are seeking information on:
The willingness and capabilities of vendors to design, manufacture, test and deliver up to four VIA-VLS (Variable Included Angle – Variable Line Spacing) monochromators to meet ALS-U requirements;
Pricing information for budgetary purposes;
Time schedule for planning purposes;
CAD models for the purposes of integration analysis and to facilitate discussion with vendors
LBNL_ALS-U_COSMIC_MonoChromator_HW Department of Energy
2/12/20, 11:43 AM