Q. Will PMTI permit customer representatives to be on the shop floor during material development and testing operations?

A. PMTI is in the materials development business, so we understand customers' concerns. We strongly encourage our customers to visit our facility and discuss details with our technical personnel. Our customers are frequently present when we perform their developmental operations. These real time interactions usually produce a synergy that improves results and reduces the need for repeating experiments.


Q. Will PMTI perform production work on a long term basis?

A. PMTI will gladly agree to provide small scale production quantities over an extended time period. We currently have several contracts to supply arc melted and/or extruded refractory and reactive metal alloys to customers on an ongoing basis and are working on other opportunities for similar contracts including performing metalworking operations.


Q. Can PMTI help study the degradation of material during its service lifetime?

A. PMTI has a variety of materials characterization capabilities that can contribute to a systematic study of degradation. These include conventional light (optical) metallography, SEM/EDS examination, mechanical testing and thermogravimetric analysis. Our technical staff is prepared to analyze your application and recommend a comprehensive, multi-procedural approach to tracking the degradation of your material, determining the point at which it should be removed from service and recommending possibilities (including material substitution) for increasing service life.


Q. Is PMTI willing to perform development work on an exclusive and proprietary basis?

A. Yes, PMTI will fulfill a customer's request for exclusive and confidential development work. PMTI will require the scope of the technology development to be specifically defined so that there is no ambiguity or confusion regarding the information to be protected. PMTI also has no problem ceding any patent rights on technology created by such development work.


Q. Can PMTI fabricate and evaluate the potential substitution of a composite material for an existing cast component?

A. Yes, PMTI can fabricate and evaluate particulate or short-fiber reinforced composite sample materials on an R&D basis. In most cases, we can subsequently perform evaluation(s) of these samples under the mechanical, thermal and atmospheric conditions relevant to the application.


Q. Can PMTI perform pre-cracking and K1c testing in accordance with ASTM standards to determine the high temperature fracture toughness of a particular alloy?

A. PMTI's Mil Std. Based Quality Assurance System provides all of the process controls necessary to meet industry standards. Our technical staff routinely performs ASTM-certifiable tests using actively calibrated equipment. In cases where ASTM standards don't exactly match a customer's requirements, we will interact with the customer to conceive and implement specialized procedures. In either case we implement procedures that ensure that the required accuracy, precision and credibility will be obtained.


Q. Can PMTI help define an approach to joining "un-weldable" materials?

A. Yes, PMTI's technical staff has over 40 years of experience in developing welding, brazing, soldering, diffusion bonding and reactive bonding processes to solve challenging joining requirements. Examples include: brazing of graphite to niobium carbide in a nuclear rocket engine core; inert atmosphere reflow soldering of thermal shock and oxidation susceptible compound semiconductor components in thermoelectric heat pumping modules; metallization and brazing of alumina ceramics to refractory metal components in thermionic energy conversion cells; and reflow vacuum brazing of multi- component molybdenum assemblies originally intended to have been welded until welding proved to be unachievable.


Q. Will PMTI provide a high purity, homogeneous small alloy ingot of a particular composition for evaluation purposes?

A. Yes, PMTI can produce arc melted ingots, bars and buttons. Melting is performed under high vacuum or partial pressure of high purity argon or helium and is conducted in accordance with strictly controlled procedures. Alloy purity is essentially determined by the purity of the make-up constituents. Homogeneity is a function of alloy composition and the melting practice; ingots can be single, double or triple vacuum arc remelts (VAR), whereas buttons and bars can be nonconsumable-electrode-remelted many times if necessary.