HERF

The Higher the Forming Rate

HIGH ENERGY RATE FABRICATION

the Lower the Yield

The use of high energy rate fabrication (HERF) allows design engineers a level of flexibility in design unattainable by other forming technologies. This was most evident when scientists from the University of Wisconsin came to AMEX with a drawing of a new concept in fusion reactor design. This design is a helically symmetric stellerator. The problem was the highly convoluted structure of the vacuum chamber. This design greatly simplifies the operation of the plasma while greatly increasing the fabrication complexity of the reactor. AMEX was able to work with the scientists to explosively form this extreme shape to very tight tolerances. With operating temperatures in excess of 8 million degF, this was truly an amazing accomplishment.

Explosive welding allows for the greatest level of tubejoint integrity possible. It allows the joining of almost any combination of alloys for tubes and tubesheets. The technology involves the impacting of the tube into the tubehole at such high energy rates that the atoms actually share their electrons across the interface, thus bonding the materials.