Technology developed by LORD Corporation will be presented as a poster at the International Conference on Recent Advances in Aerospace Actuation Systems and Components.

The forum will take place April 1-4, 2014 at the Hotel Mercure Compans Cafarelli in Toulouse, France. The poster is titled, “Thermal Management Materials to Improve the Performance of Electric Devices for Aerospace Applications.”

Electric actuators, motors and generators produce excess heat that limits their attainable horsepower and decreases the amount of time the motor can be operated at high power.  Effectively dissipating this heat will allow for design of electric actuators and motors with higher power and lower weight.  According to Daniel Barber, staff scientist in Open Technology Innovation at LORD Corporation, it has been demonstrated previously that thermally conductive varnishes can increase the amount of time a motor can operate at high power before reaching its temperature limit. Further, thermally conductive potting materials have been shown to reduce hot spot temperatures in a permanent magnet motor by up to 50 degrees Celsius versus an unpotted motor. The poster will describe the thermally conductive materials used to improve the permanent magnet motors and investigate the likely effects of this potting on motor horsepower and lifetime.  Other thermal management technologies may also be described that have the potential to improve actuator performance.

Barber joined LORD in 2005 as a R&D scientist in the MR Solutions Group, where he developed patented glycol-based magnetorheological fluids and participated in customer support activities in the U.S., Europe and Japan. During his tenure at LORD, he has been a member of the Chemical Research and Development group under LORD Global Technology and has acted as technical lead and customer liaison on several new business development projects. In his current role as staff scientist, Barber leads collaborative projects with customers to understand their technical needs and to identify solutions that LORD can provide. He has authored or co-authored two book chapters and numerous publications on the properties and uses of MR fluids. Barber served as co-chair of the ERMR Sessions at the ACTUATOR conferences in Bremen, Germany from 2008-2012. He earned his Bachelor of Science in chemistry at Furman University and his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the University of Virginia.

For more information or to register for the Conference, visit http://r3asc14.sciencesconf.org/.