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ROBERT S. BARNARD, PHD
Doctor Barnard has extensive and diverse
Engineering, Management and Leadership experience and is Results Oriented.
Bob earned his PhD in Metallurgy &
Materials Science from Case Western Reserve University. His thesis project
was on Irradiation Damage Studies of Silicates & Metal Oxides using
High-Voltage Transmission Electron Microscopy. His Masters was also
earned at CWRU and Bob's research work was on Diffusion Studies in Ceramics
using Proton Activation techniques. Bob's BS was earned at WPI in Physics
and for his senior project, he investigated "Double Compton Scattering Within the Coherence
Length of a Gamma Ray" at the on-campus reactor facility. Bob
graduated the EMoT (Executive Management of Technology) program at the
Weatherhead School of Management in 1997.
Prior to founding Advanced Materials
Solutions Corporation, Bob spent 23 years employed at Reliance Electric /
Rockwell Automation. He joined Reliance Electric in 1977 and from 1981
until 1983 he headed up the newly formed Corporate Engineering Group. This afforded him the opportunity to
travel overseas and investigate emerging technologies first hand, including a major tour and interaction with
the two Japanese steel giants, Nippon and Kawasaki. Throughout his career at
Reliance, Bob was actively involved with soft ferromagnetic and permanent magnet
materials. In the 1980's, he guided Reliance into taking advantage of
the newly emerging technologies of "highly-textured" electrical
steels that the Japanese companies had developed and which considerably
surpassed the performance of conventional steels with equivalent alloying
additions and performed similar to that of the "expensive" high
silicon alloyed domestic electrical steels . Electrical Steel has been a
major cost factor in the production of most electric motors and both the use of
the textured steels and the leverage that was applied to domestic manufacturers
allowed a major cost savings to that corporation for many years to follow.
Bob also headed up the Corporate-wide Electrical Steels Task Force that involved
all segments of the business that were dependent upon electrical steels and
included North American Transformer and Kato Engineering.
Bob
has had a varied engineering background during his years at Reliance interacting
directly with parent corporate groups at Exxon and later, Rockwell. Materials issues
have ranged from those in microelectronics to ferrous and non-ferrous foundry
metallurgy. Bob worked closely with Manufacturing and was an active participant of
the Corporate Manufacturing Council. A short overview is presented below:
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ELECTRONICS
- Electronic Packaging Technology
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Developed
the Surface Mount Standards for the Corporation. Played a key role
in choice of processing technology incorporated at the manufacturing
facilities. |
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High-Power
Density Packaging for Drives (Inverters) & Telecommunications
(DC-DC power modules) including Direct Die-Attach and Heavy/Fine Wire
Bonding. |
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Metal
Core Substrates (MCS) - worked closely with and assisted vendors to
develop the proper Thermally Conductive, Electrically Insulating
Substrate to meet/exceed specifications. Interacted with the
engineering departments of MCS vendors and inspected various production sites both domestically
and in Japan. MCS suppliers visited included: Denka, Nippon Rika, Furakawa, Mitsui
Toatso, Bergquist, etc. Interfaced with UL to ensure that the
substrate material met regulatory agency requirements for the intended
use. |
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Designed
and put into operation a quick-turn-around limited production Hybrid
facility. Typical multi-layer circuits were turned around in just
two weeks (from schematics to limited production lots for
evaluation and field testing) in contrast to outside vendors with up to
4 months turn-around time. |
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Actively
involved in Sensor technology and their corresponding application
opportunities. |
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ELECTROMAGNETICS
- Electrical Steels
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Electrical
Steels
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Bob
recognized early on that something had to be done with reducing the
costs associated with the Electro-Magnetic circuit of motors. He first
developed an accurate Electrical Steel test platform for property
evaluations of Electrical Steels and then had the manufacturing
plants do likewise (1977). He then introduced digital measuring equipment at the motor test floor to allow consistent
repetitive measurements with much reduced error then that which was
previously achieved. This then set
the groundwork for accurately evaluating the effect of the
Electrical Steels.
He teamed up with Corporate Purchasing
to ensure the "biggest bang for the buck" on Electrical
Steel
purchases. |
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Corp.
Electrical Steels task force leader - Reliance was a major consumer
of Electrical Steels for both motors and Large Transformers - The
task force met on a regular basis and helped to ensure that the
right electrical steel was purchased that was to be incorporated
within the product. Design Engineers had the opportunity to be
updated as to what Electrical Steels were available for the product lines and
what their relative costs (on a per pound basis) were. |
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CVD
Siliconization and other technologies were successfully developed
(patent issued) to modify low-cost steel and make it extremely
competitive with high-performance electrical steels, both in performance
and cost. The CVD project was considered in FY1999 as the most
important project for Rockwell Automation's Motor Group.
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Analyzed
various "opportunities" to partner in various ventures
including off-shore permanent magnet technology |
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Ferrite
evaluations |
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| DIE-CASTING
| Engineering Lead for aluminum
die-casting improvements for the Motor Group. Developed a unique
low-conductivity aluminum alloy that was thermally stable for high-slip rotor applications (most
low-conductivity aluminum alloys age and do not retain their initial
low-conductivity). |
| Operated small foundry and
successfully developed various die-casting technologies including Vacuum
Die-Casting of the induction squirrel cage of A-C rotors with both
aluminum as well as copper (aluminum-bronze) alloys. |
| Assisted both vendors and in-plant
manufacturing to reduce/eliminate porosity from die-cast products.
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| POWDER METALLURGY
| Developed Hi-Performance ferrous
powder metallurgy process imparting wrought-like properties to powder
metallurgy parts without the typical additional ancillary processing. |
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| FAILURE ANALYSIS
| Failure Analysis examinations
included/associated with:
| Fatigue |
| Casting (Ferrous, Aluminum and
Copper) Defects |
| Corrosion Attack (structural
components, electronics, coatings, etc) |
| Welding |
| Solder Joints |
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| CHARACTERIZATION OF MATERIALS
| Bob had put into place a
Characterization Laboratory outfitted with a Philips Digital SEM w/ EDX (XL30),
TEM, FFTIR, Optical Microscopy and Macro-photography, Metallographic
capability, Thermal Aging capability, etc. Some have
described this lab as one of the nicest Materials Labs in the Cleveland
area. |
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| PROJECT MANAGEMENT / MARKETING
| Sold projects to various groups at
Rockwell/Rockwell Automation at a fixed targeted cost which included
manpower and materials. Projects were tracked and maintained on
budget and on time. Projects typically involved teams of
Engineers/Scientists from across the country. These projects were
well coordinated and yielded very positive results. |
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Prior to starting Advanced Materials Solutions
Corporation, Bob was Manager of the Corporate Materials Science Group at
Rockwell Automation and his staff included PhD metallurgists and polymer
scientists. He also managed virtual teams of scientists and engineers from
various operations throughout the US. During his 23 years at
Rockwell Automation and Reliance Electric, he had served in several roles, a few of
which included Mgr., Adv. Materials Technology, Mgr., Microelectronics Grp., and
Mgr. Hybrid Microelectronics Grp. Besides his management role, he was a
Consulting Engineer since 1981.
Bob actively participated in the Rockwell
Structural Materials Tech Panel, and the following are photographs with the
space shuttle Atlantis in the background during a Tech Panel meeting held at Cape
Canaveral.
 
Dr. Barnard with the Atlantis in the
Background
Dr. Barnard under the Atlantis
To see the other shuttle pics, click
here: SHUTTLE PICS
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