Advanced Materials develops, evaluates and optimizes new industrial materials and processing technologies for Alberta’s energy, manufacturing, natural resource, and supply sectors through the following suite of programs:
Surface Engineering
Our surface engineering program designs, develops and characterizes protective materials and their application processes, used in oil, gas and oil sands applications.
Find out more about our work in surface engineering and how you can put our expertise to work for you.
Welding Engineering
Our welding engineering program aims to improve the productivity and quality of the fabrication, construction and energy industries through the evaluation, proof-of-concept and adoption of advanced welding and automation technologies.
Find out more about our work in welding engineering and how you can put our expertise to work for you.
Corrosion Engineering
Our corrosion engineering program assesses materials performance in corrosive environments and evaluates integrity management solutions for the energy industry. Specialized sour service testing and an oil flow loop provide unique facilities for industry testing and research.
Find out more about our work in corrosion engineering and how you can put our expertise to work for you.
Pilot-scale Slurry Flow Loop
Located in Devon, Alberta, the Pilot-Scale Slurry Flow Loop facility allows the oil sands, heavy oil, and mining industries to understand and characterize the dynamics of slurry fluids, and their effects on the wear behaviour of piping and pump components. This specialized, worldclass facility allows for the assessment of various materials in slurry transport applications through the controlled simulation of flow conditions observed in field-scale slurry pipeline systems.
Find our more about this facility and how you can put it to work for you.
Collaboration
While the Advanced Materials group has a wide range of expertise and seasoned professionals, we realize the importance of collaboration. As such, our group has been instrumental in setting up two industry-led consortia to tackle industry-wide issues.
AMFI
The Alberta Metal Fab Innovation (AMFI) Program is designed to improve your company’s efficiency, productivity and competitiveness so that you can capitalize on new opportunities – in Alberta and in new global markets.
AMFI is designed to bring the latest manufacturing technologies and processes to Alberta’s metal fabrication industry sector. The program is aimed at improving productivity for this key Alberta sector by offering valuable hands-on workshops throughout the province, that allow participants to test-dive and demonstrate the latest new equipment and fabrication technologies, and to undertake high level training. The training modules include modern welding processes, automation systems, metallurgy, and health and safety as well as tailored business development coaching.
These targeted programs are helping to ensure that Alberta companies are leaders in implementing new technologies to meet new opportunities in Alberta’s energy and natural resource sectors – the most significant drivers of the provincial economy. These new opportunities are part of new global supply chains that also represent unprecedented competition and challenges. AMFI is focussed on the critical issues that will put Alberta in the path of these opportunities by offering new technology implementation, training and workforce development.
AMFI is a joint Venture between AITF, the University of Alberta, Productivity Alberta and Alberta Finance & Enterprise.
MARIOS
In 2009, Tech Futures launched a new industry-directed consortium, Materials and Reliability in Oil Sands (MARIOS), to tackle industry-wide maintenance and reliability issues.
The goal of MARIOS is to develop knowledge and validate technologies to significantly reduce downtime, and improve
operational reliability and productivity in the oil sands industry.
The consortium links oil sands producers, materials and equipment suppliers, fabricators, and technology providers
to collaboratively solve industry-wide problems.
Learn more about MARIOS by downloading our brochure.
PiCoM
In 2008, the Pipeline Corrosion Management (PiCoM) working group was established to evaluate, develop, and enhance a comprehensive pipeline corrosion monitoring system for midstream and downstream petroleum operations. Currently the group consists of pipeline operators working together to evaluate and optimize corrosion mitigation strategies and identify best practices in the field of corrosion monitoring.
Contact Us
To learn more about Advanced Materials and how to put our expertise to work for you, please contact:
John Wolodko
Technical Program Leader
Advanced Materials
(780) 450-5407
John.wolodko [at] albertainnovates.ca