Senator the Hon Arthur Sinodinos AO, Australia’s Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, announced new funding for LaserBond under the Cooperative Research Centre Projects (CRC-P). This initiative supports short-term industry-led collaborations to solve industry problems and deliver tangible outcomes.

The LaserBond lead project in conjunction with its partners (University of South Australia & Boart Longyear) receives A$2,616,000 of funding to support a multi party, A$8,266,000, three year collaboration project associated with the material science and use of laser technologies to improve a spectrum of wear points, many associated with drilling for mining. In conjunction with these R&D activities, LaserBond and Boart Longyear recently signed a non-binding strategic partnership to pursue mutually beneficial commercial products and services.

University of South Australia and LaserBond already have a collaborative R&D agreement for the development of technology, systems, processes and applications associated with wear resistant surface engineered cladding for resource, agricultural and other heavy industries. The parties see this as an important foundation step towards improving productivity in mining through mutually beneficial collaboration.

The picture shows drill stabilisers forming part of the drill string to prevent unintentional side tracking and reduce vibration (rod rattle) in the drill string, thus ensuring a higher quality hole. When they are laser clad with appropriate metallurgy they extend life by three to five times.