Red River College and StandardAero have been named recipients of the 2011 John Convey Innovation Award, for the contributions to training and technological development made possible by the Centre for Aerospace Technology and Training (CATT).

Awarded by ASM International (formerly the American Society for Metals), the annual honour recognizes companies for their contribution to furthering the development of the materials engineering industry in Canada.

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Red River College (RRC) was one of 35 colleges that will share in more than $8 million in federal grant money, via the federal government’s recently announced Applied Research Tools and Instruments Grants, a brand new initiative under the College and Community Innovation Program.

This grant supports the purchase of research equipment and installations to foster and enhance the ability of colleges to conduct applied research.

“This funding helps us with our ongoing mandate of applying knowledge to solve real-world challenges,” says Ray Hoemsen, Director of Applied Research and Commercialization at RRC.

RRC received a grant of $127,001, which will be used to upgrade the environmental test chambers in the College’s Centre for Applied Research in Sustainable Infrastructure and acquire air leakage testing equipment to be used for commercial and industrial buildings.

“Upgrades are under way and we are already using the air leakage testing equipment on a handful of projects,” says Hoemsen. “Applied research is a key element in improving Canada’s productivity and innovation capacity. We are thankful for the federal government’s continued support.”

Click to learn more about RRC’s office of Applied Research and Commercialization.

As part of their efforts to make composite manufacturing more economical, an instructor and a grad from RRC's Mechanical Engineering Technology program have developed a new means of making dissolvable mandrels and patterns, otherwise known as "rapid prototype composite tooling (RPCT)."

Composite manufacturing currently has substantial overhead costs, partly due to the expense of tooling.

"To produce these tools, one typically requires expensive machines that are also very slow and costly to operate," says Leon Fainstein, the instructor who led the development of the new RPCT. "By contrast, RPCT involves only one affordable machine — a 3D printer."

The 3D printer will print virtually any shape of dissolvable mandrels and patterns in about four to eight hours, and even print multiple mandrels or patterns at once.

"Manufacturers require permanent composite molds for short production runs. RPCT can make them with dissolvable patterns," says Serge Broeska (shown, above), the program grad who's now working as a Research Technologist at RRC's Centre for Applied Research in Sustainable Infrastructure  (CARSI). "These composite molds can be very complex, have smooth surfaces, and are comparable to metal molds, with the exception that they are much less expensive."

While there are other methods of making dissolvable mandrels and patterns, RPCT is the only method whereby dissolvable mandrels and patterns can be made directly from CAD files.

"With the progressive development of RPCT, the possibilities for composite design and manufacturing are becoming endless," says Broeska.

To learn more about this breakthrough, read Broeska's article here.

Click here for more information about RRC's Mechanical Engineering Technology program.