4 — AM Supplement 4 — A M S u p p l e m e n t
F E A T U R E
H
ave you heard of Mar-M 247? You might
not have. I had not heard of this material
before I visited Deka Research & Devel-
opment. The nickel-based alloy with exceptional
high-temperature strength is sometimes used in
high-pressure turbines, and in the future, it just
might fgure into a solution for bringing power to
impoverished parts of the world.
Deka is the Manchester, New Hampshire,
company founded by Dean Kamen, the inventor
known for the Segway human transporter and for
the FIRST program that attracts young people to
careers in science and engineering. Today, an
ongoing focus of Deka's attention is the Stirling
engine. The company believes it can
develop a modern version of the Stirling
engine that takes advantage of today's
manufacturing technology to increase
the power effciency of an old and pre-
viously obscure engine design.
A Stirling engine runs on external
combustion. Simply put: Burn any fuel
beneath it, and the heat allows the
engine to generate power. The concept
was conceived and proven more than
200 years ago, but its shortcoming
has always been the large bulk of this
engine relative to its output. Stated
another way, the shortcoming has been
the small amount of power that can
be generated by a reasonable-sized
version of this engine running at rea-
sonable temperatures.
But today it is likely that this
shortcoming can be overcome. If so,
the effect on the lives of people in
the poorest parts of the world might be
By Peter Zelinski
Material
Improvement
In addition to the geometric freedom,
additive manufacturing also provides
the freedom to use metals that would
be diffcult to apply another way. Deka
Research & Development is exploring
both freedoms as it seeks to create a
power source that could improve the
lives of people around the world.