FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Brentwood, TN, October 10, 2022 – VEXTEC Corporation was awarded a sole source contract from the U.S. Navy to expand its Corrosion Cracking Maintenance Prediction Software (CCMPS). CCMPS is used by the Navy to predict the future maintenance needs for aluminum (5000 series) ship structures.

The U.S. Navy is tasked with extending the lifetime of certain naval vessels by 5-10 years at full mission capability, however, they have been challenged by stress corrosion cracking of their aluminum ship structures which impacts maintenance schedules. That’s where CCMPS comes into play. The Navy uses CCMPS to simulate inspection schedules of their aluminum fleet resulting in a “Time-to-Repair” prediction. This software capability gives the Navy a way to turn actual data in to actionable data which they can use to improve maintenance planning schedules.

Under this contract, VEXTEC will add new capabilities and technology to the software enabling the Navy to continue using CCMPS for years to come. “In the current CCMPS scheme, each ship location of the fleet is simulated individually and the next doesn’t begin until the prior has finished,” said, Dr. Animesh Dey, VEXTEC’s Chief Product Development Officer, “VEXTEC will be implementing a multi-threading method in the software; this will allow multiple locations to be simulated in tandem and compiled at the end once all ship locations of the digital fleet have completed the simulation.” These upgrades will reduce the overall time it takes to run a model benefiting the Navy’s condition-based maintenance needs which is essential to their overall mission.

About VEXTEC:

VEXTEC Corporation works with both federal & commercial clients across many industries to provide fatigue prediction software based on ICME (Integrated Computational Materials Engineering) to predict product durability. This unique software, VPS-MICRO, fills a gap in the existing capabilities provided by CAD/CAM, FEA, statistical modeling, and physical material and component testing by effectively integrating them into a single computational processing framework. VEXTEC has seven US patents related to its technology. For more information on VEXTEC and VPS-MICRO software, visit: http://vextec.com.

BRENTWOOD, Tenn., April 28, 2020—VEXTEC^® Corporation in Nashville, TN, has been awarded a small business innovative research (SBIR) contract, supported by Aerojet Rocketdyne, to develop an additive manufacturing certification framework for Air Force applications, with the objective of accelerating the qualification and adoption process for new additive manufactured materials, augmenting the traditional verification process with a model-informed software tool called VPS-MICRO^®.

The VEXTEC developed software, VPS-MICRO, is an Integrated Computational Material Engineering (ICME) based tool that predicts the risk of cyclic fatigue failure of an additive manufactured metal part based on the location specific microstructure, defects, residual stress and surface roughness. Using the software eliminates unsuccessful design options early in the design processes. Also, the software greatly reduces the test cost and time needed to determine the statistical confidence in the certified lifetime instead of having to acquire a large population of fatigue tests needed to do the same.

“We are leveraging real word data we’ve collected like fatigue strength and microstructure to create a digital model that can be used to predict the critical fatigue failure points of a component and simulate how surface features affect overall component strength,” said Dan Matejczyk,  Materials and Process Engineer,  Aerojet Rocketdyne. “The goal is to have a mix of physical test data combined with virtual data to accelerate the qualification process. Aerojet Rocketdyne will provide years of historical test data and VEXTEC will provide the software modeling capability.”

Rapid and reliable part qualification is necessary for additive manufactured components to realize their potential benefits. However, variability in microstructure and surface features may be significant, and must be managed for assured reliability. This program’s certification framework, methods and tools will assure component performance and reliability while enabling additive manufacturing schedule and cost advantages.

Aerojet Rocketdyne, a leader in additive manufacturing for more than a decade, will support VEXTEC in incorporating the additive manufacturing certification with computational fatigue models into a standard work process.

Jeff Haynes, Additive Manufacturing Program Manager at Aerojet Rocketdyne, noted that “With regard to additive manufacturing, we need to answer questions like: Where does modeling fit into the certification process? What is the best mix of analysis and testing? What are viable near-term solutions and what are the long-term goals for computationally enhanced certification processes that will be useful in the broader aerospace industry to produce highly-reliable parts.”

VEXTEC’s SBIR technology transition plan (STTP) for its current Phase II work involves further maturing of its VPS-MICRO software to a higher Technology Readiness Level (TRL) through validation testing, and working with Aerojet Rocketdyne and the company’s DoD partners. This maturation beyond the Phase II level intends to focus on computational predictive modeling of additive manufactured parts in order to meet the Air Force’s needs in process development, vendor qualification/process control, and airworthiness certification.

“We feel that VEXTEC’s VPS-MICRO: additive manufacturing software can be an integral tool in this effort because it represents the integration of additive manufacturing process modeling with performance prediction to provide a better tool for certification. Having Aerojet Rocketdyne’s keen interest will assure the process will interface with the commercial engineering practice,” noted Dr. Bob Tryon, VEXTEC’s President and CTO.

About Aerojet Rocketdyne:
Aerojet Rocketdyne, a subsidiary of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AJRD), is a world-recognized aerospace and defense leader that provides propulsion systems and energetics to the space, missile defense and strategic systems, and tactical systems areas, in support of domestic and international customers. For more information, visit www.Rocket.com and www.AerojetRocketdyne.com. Follow Aerojet Rocketdyne and CEO Eileen Drake on Twitter at @AerojetRdyne and @DrakeEileen.

About VEXTEC:

VEXTEC Corporation has a unique microstructural fatigue durability prediction software based on ICME (Integrated Computational Materials Engineering) to predict long-term product durability. This technology fills a gap in the existing capabilities provided by CAD/CAM, FEA, statistical modeling, and physical material and component testing, by effectively integrating them into a single computational processing framework. VEXTEC’s clients include leading multinationals in the aerospace, automotive, electronics, energy, heavy industry and medical device manufacturing sectors, as well as many federal government agencies. VEXTEC has also received several grants from the United States Department of Defense through its Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR/STTR) programs. VEXTEC has been granted seven patents related to its technology.

For more information, visit: https://vextec.com/

BRENTWOOD, Tenn., November 18, 2019 – VEXTEC was selected to be an awardee at the Air Force’s inaugural Technical Executive Officer Pitch Day, held near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio on November 15, 2019. This marked the second Pitch Day award that VEXTEC garnered in the same week; VEXTEC was also awarded a Pitch Day contract from the Air Force’s Rapid Sustainment Office for Additive Manufacturing on November 13, 2019.

VEXTEC’s pitch for enhancing computational methodologies for durability performance prediction of metallic components made by Additive Manufacturing (AM) was well-received by the Air Force’s representatives from Acquisition, Technology, Logistics, and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). VEXTEC’s Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Bob Tryon, and Chief Product Development Officer, Dr. Animesh Dey, were on-hand to make the pitch and receive the award.

VEXTEC accepting the Air Force Research Laboratory’s funding award at the inaugural Technical Executive Officer Pitch Day, on November 15 2019 in Dayton, Ohio. Pictured left to right are: Lt. General Duke Richardson (Military Deputy at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics), Dr. Animesh Dey (VEXTEC’s Chief of Product Development), Dr. Bob Tryon (VEXTEC’s Chief of Technology), and Maj. General William Cooley (Commander at the Air Force Research Laboratory) Photo credit: AFRL.

VEXTEC’s pitched SBIR technology transition plan (STTP) for its current Phase II work involves further maturing of its VPS-MICRO predictive durability software to a higher Technology Readiness Level (TRL) through validation testing, and working with industrial and DoD partners. This maturation beyond the Phase II level intends to focus on computational predictive modeling of AM parts, to meet the Air Force’s needs in process development, outside vendor qualification/process control, and airworthiness certification.

“The Air Force needs a path to efficiently certify AM products to realize maximum gains with regards to airworthiness, sustainment and fleet readiness objectives. We feel that VEXTEC’s VPS-MICRO:AM software can be an integral tool in this effort,” Dr. Tryon said.

In total, $14 million in total SBIR funding was awarded at the Pitch Day event, to small businesses from across the country specializing in many different areas. Lt. General Duke Richardson (of the Office of Air Force Acquisition, Technology and Logistics in Arlington, Virginia) closed the event with an enthusiastic statement to all of the awardees: “Today was fun! Tomorrow, let’s get after it. Give us even more than we’re expecting.” We intend to, sir!

October 5, 2016 -The United States Air Force (USAF) recognizes that rising procurement cost and shrinking budgets require sustainment of existing aircraft. An improved life cycle management tool that helps inform sustainment decisions and extends remaining useful life of aircraft is essential for decreasing total ownership costs. To facilitate this effort, the USAF has awarded a new Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract to VEXTEC to develop a software that can be used to predict the effect of corrosion on the lifetime assessment of airborne systems.

Quantification of corrosion damage is important to the management of the structural integrity of an airframe, and current corrosion damage modeling methods are expensive and provide only rough estimates of damage. Cracking due to corrosion is a complex problem that needs to integrate multiple physics-of-failure modes for accurate simulation of the damage state and better prediction of failure risk. VEXTEC’s Virtual Life Management® (VLM®) proprietary software is a multi-disciplinary, multi-scale systems engineering software in which failure models are developed for all of the important components in a system, such as an airframe. The result of this Phase II program will be an integrated computational software that combines state-of-the-art corrosion and structural integrity models, and demonstrates prediction of a corrosion-assisted failure on an aircraft component.

“VEXTEC is in an extraordinary position to develop a probabilistic corrosion assisted cracking tool capable of determining the locations and intervals for inspection of current aircraft along with improving the structural designs for future aircraft,” stated Dr. Animesh Dey, VEXTEC Chief Product Development Officer (CPDO). “VLM services and software have helped clients accelerate product development, reduce physical testing costs, improve product designs and material specification during development, and helped clients resolve field performance issues.”

It is envisioned that the software will be used to optimize inspection and maintenance of aging aircraft. It will also aid in the design of corrosion-tolerant structures. The capability will enhance the overall scope of VLM to become a general purpose, multi-disciplinary virtual design, analysis and inspection tool. VEXTEC will work closely with the USAF, in particular the Aircraft Structural Integrity Program (ASIP) managers in this Phase II. The collaboration will help to commercialize the technology being developed in Phase II via integration with ASIP sustainment practices.

About VEXTEC:

VEXTEC’s Virtual Life Management (VLM) is a unique integration of engineering analysis, computational materials science and condition monitoring protected by seven patents. The VLM process helps companies predict and enhance the reliability and performance of critical components during design, testing, manufacturing and service. Since 2000, VEXTEC’s Virtual Twin® has provided predictive analytics prognostics and life extension for hundreds of different products. To learn more, visit www.vextec.com.

The Comet’s legacy is not completely negative however; these early failures helped develop the backbone of fatigue and fracture mechanics that would be used, refined and evolved over the next 70 years. Indeed, it was only 20 years after that first test flight of the Comet that NASA’s engineering team supported a successful moon landing! Industries beyond aviation and space exploration have benefited from this science as well: heavy machinery, transportation, naval, energy, medical devices…all have been fundamentally changed by the furtherance of materials science principles.

VEXTEC continues this evolutionary effort, by incorporating these “physics of failure” principles into our probabilistic Virtual Life Management® technology. We differentiate ourselves from other computational fatigue methods, by combining a component’s inherent microstructural variability with physics-based damage mechanisms and realistic loading histories to accurately predict fatigue life. As structures become increasingly more complex, with continual demands for lighter-weight materials (for both manufacturing and operational cost savings) and better performance, the need for a comprehensive reliability simulation technology becomes clear. No one wants to be the next disastrous chapter in this Comet’s Tale.

Image by Praisaeng at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

While plenty of industries abhor corrosion and its consequences, another sector has welcomed it as a step in the healing process: medical devices. Devices have evolved over the decades to be less-intrusive during (and after) implantation.The bio-inert nature of titanium (along with its weight and strength characteristics) has made it the go-to material for structural orthopedic implants (hip and knee joints, bone plates and screws, etc.). These implants are made to go into the patient’s body and remain there, hopefully performing well for an extended period of time without the need for replacement. But what about implantable devices that have a finite life of medical functionality, and afterwards can become detrimental to the patient’s quality of life?

Such is the case with attaching soft tissues to bone during ACL repairs, as described in a recent issue of Advanced Materials & Processes. Stainless steel or plastic attachments have been the accepted materials in the past because of their strength and biocompatibility behaviors. However, once these devices have done their job they can be hard to remove, or can (in the case of stainless steel) cause metal sensitivity in the patient. Implanted screws made of polymer-based biocomposites have been shown to degrade at a safe rate in living bone and tissue. This allows the repaired ligament to heal, while the tool itself is slowly absorbed by the body using its own metabolic conversion system (the Krebs cycle).

Another example is the performing of a balloon angioplasty to unblock clotted arteries. The device employed in this procedure is a balloon-tipped catheter, which widens the artery. A metallic mesh stent is placed in the area where the work was performed, to keep the artery open as it heals from the procedure. The mesh stent never goes away, which can have an unintended outcome as time progresses. In an ideal world, the stent would remain properly positioned in the artery and cause no further damage. In reality, the stent has the opportunity to create major issues in the body after the artery’s healing time (localized inflammation, or structural breakdown resulting in stent fracture and arterial wall damage). A research group at Michigan Tech is looking to take the bio-corrodible nature of zinc and use it to their advantage in stent design. An alloyed zinc stent would perform the necessary function of propping the blood vessel open as it heals, and then would break down into products that are harmless to the body after its function is complete. The degradation rate for zinc in the body has been shown to be approximately 0.015 millimeters/month for the first three months (the crucial timeframe for stent functionality), with an accelerated rate after that.

VEXTEC’s past success with modeling corrosion-induced damage propagation (previously used for corrosion mitigation purposes) provides an exciting opportunity to repurpose this methodology to model the corrosion state in materials and devices in which degradation is in fact encouraged. Whether seen as detrimental or beneficial, the processes of corrosion and fatigue are interrelated. The key to merging the two phenomena lies in reducing the size of the initial flaw (as described by traditional damage tolerance analysis) to better reflect the size ranges that are observed in corroded surfaces. In the realm of bioabsorbable medical devices, the ongoing degradation due to corrosion can be explicitly accounted-for during the service life of the implanted devices. The randomized load patterns of a given virtual patient (or a population of patients) can provide the external loads necessary to perform simulated damage progression. This analysis could provide insights into the reliability of a temporary implant and its effect on a patient’s wellbeing.

Most engineers can agree that industrial equipment is designed to operate safely within a certain range of conditions, and in a perfect world, would be operated within its predetermined limits. But often, the designed-for conditions and actual operating conditions are worlds apart. This gap between “as designed” and “as operated” often ends with one or more of the following: premature failure, unanticipated downtime, unplanned maintenance, productivity losses, unexpected repair and replacement costs, and lost revenue.

VEXTEC Virtual Life Management^® (VLM^®) technology predicts the durability of manufactured products by aggregating all the various data sets that describe the product and its behavior. Traditional design analysis today accounts for some of these data, for instance, by looking at the stress imparted on a component. However, stress data alone, is not enough to predict durability which is a function of the materials reaction to that stress. This is what differentiates VLM from traditional methods. By relating all the data that describes the product in one computationally robust platform, VEXTEC VLM simulators give engineers the ability to see how material processing variation, design changes, or changes in the operating conditions affect component durability.

Click here for a case study where an industrial manufacturing company hired VEXTEC to conduct a root failure analysis of their manufacturing line and to evaluate corrective actions to repair the failure and maintain the equipment. The manufacturer estimated that in this one project, VEXTEC saved them over $700,000 in capital investments.

If you would like to evaluate and optimize your manufacturing production or would just like more information on the VLM technology, contact us

¹ The 2006 study by Nielsen Research is based on 101 manufacturing executives in the automotive industry