Forge Bonding™ – Invention to Marketplace
Forge Bonding™ is an innovation on an older technology in order to bond without producing sparks so that you can make welding-like repairs in any environment.
Forge Bonding™ is based on friction welding, an older technology still used today in manufacturing. But, it’s a large floor standing piece of equipment that produces ignition sources.
These two areas are what would be improved upon, making Forge Bonding™ fully portable and safe in volatile environments.
Even today, Forge Bonding™ continues to be innovated on, becoming lighter and more safe with every new generation.
In this article, I’m going to share with you how the technology was originally innovated on, the reason for the innovation, and the future of where Forge Bonding™ can go.
In His Garage
Mike Miller, the creator of Forge Bonding™ that is still with us today, began working on this technology in his garage in 2004.
Having started his career in the leak sealing industry, Mike was up on tank roofs, drilling and tapping to put plates down to stop leaks, and trying to repair valves with drill and tap…
When he realized there’s got to a better way to bond without sparks.
So in his after hours and on the weekends, he slowly developed the technology through funding from his father in his garage and out in his yard.
Mike would test again and again to try to create ignition from the Forge Bonding™ process he was working on, but he could never get it to happen.
When myself and another started working with Mike, we worked to determine the exact amount of energy required to create ignition, and Mike’s technology was never even close.
After 6 years of ups and downs, working in his garage to develop the technology, Mike landed his first investor in 2010, where Forge Bonding™ finally entered the marketplace.
But, the journey to mass market this innovative bonding process wasn’t over, and getting people’s heads wrapped around the safety of the technology still remained.
The Procedure
Once the technology was brought to market in 2010, we hired a welding engineer out of NASA who was able to qualify the stud bond and put together a procedure for that said bond.
This was the true beginning of a marketable product. We had a welding procedure and a procedural qualification record.
But, there was still the issue of the backside temperature on these bonds. Everybody was concerned about how much thermal energy is generated in this bonding process.
They wanted to know how much energy was making it to the backside of the piece of metal the bond was performed on.
Because of this, we spent a year and a half developing a test and performing this test to gather data.
From this, we wrote a paper that we published with the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. We demonstrated that there’s a factor of safety of two on the backside temperature.
On top of this, both the bonds and the operators who perform them are qualified to ASME section IX, and we are currently working to get the process rolled into the API standard.
Assuming no unforeseen complications, we hope to be in the standard by the end of 2021.
Continuously evolving
Forge Bonding™ has only evolved since it became fully marketable. It started out at Generation 1 and we are currently working with Generation 4.5.
With each new innovation, the technology becomes smaller, lighter, more efficient, more user friendly, and more affordable.
Plus, the applications this technology has use for is growing exponentially.
Customers are constantly bringing us new ideas, and we get to come up with solutions on how to use Forge Bonding™ to solve their problems.
Because this technology is so portable and bonds without producing an ignition source, the possibilities truly are endless with where Forge Bonding™ can go.
We will continue to innovate and improve this technology to serve clients so that you can make critical repairs to your tanks and other facility equipment without interrupting operations.
Thanks for reading.