Interdisciplinary teams hailing fromWichita State,University of Kansas, andKansas State University, are joining forces to form an entrepreneurial incubator that aims to explore sustainable material design and manufacturing processes for metal 3D printing through applying an emerging data analytic algorithm.
Named the Smart Fusion Material Research Cluster (SFMRC), the team’s mission is to stimulate research, education, and practice within sustainable manufacturing through advancing science, technology, and policy elements of computational material design and 3D printing. To achieve this, they will deploy novel data analytics, computational approaches, and diagnostic tools in what the team calls a socio-techno-economic approach – understanding material design and manufacturing as an ecological system where individual, technology, infrastructure, and social environments intersect with each other.
“Sustainable material design and manufacturing are grand societal challenges, since those are essential to technological advancement and economic growth in multi-billion industries, economic sectors, and national security,” said Dr. Gisuk Hwang, Principal investigator on the project and Associate Professor of mechanical engineering at Wichita State.
“The mission of the proposed research cluster is to investigate coupled interactions among science, technology, socio-techno-economic, public, and environmental policy in material discovery through collaborations with intra-KBOR members and innovation campus, and to train students and industry professionals to empower the future workforce.”
Advancing metal 3D printing
根据Hwang的说法，当前对金属添加剂制造的挑战包括对材料特性，3D打印过程参数之间的关系缺乏了雷电竞充值解，疲劳和热应力。为简单起见，Hwang将集群研究的这一领域称为材料过程 - 微观结构机械关系，并且促进对这些互连的基本知识是该项目的主要短期目标之一。
为此，团队将开发新的数据分析算法，能够理解金属添加剂制造材料收集的数值，文本和图像数据之间的关系，并将这些数据与诊断和计算模拟工具相结合，以查看材料优化的进步可以在哪里可以是雷电竞充值制成。然后，研究人员将研究社会经济因素，以促进开发材料的商业化。
SFMRC将探索已经在金属3D打印中广泛使用的两种金属，以及对各种添加剂制造应用进行优化的更多挑战，例如铝，基于镍的合金，钛，铜，铜和镁。雷电竞充值
“Currently, we are trying to understand the material-process-microstructure-mechanical relationships in trial and error based experiments, which is a very expensive process,” Hwang explained. “We plan to come up with good predictive tools using the data analytic approach to reduce the cost and stimulate the commercialization [of the materials].
“此外，我们想了解这项技术在社会科学和政策方面的商业化方面的瓶颈。”
Desired project outcomes
By the end of the project, the SFMRC hopes to have developed a database system that details the material-process-microstructure-mechanical relationships for a variety of materials deployed within metal 3D printing. Users will be able to purchase the printing parameters laid out in the database to use for their own projects.
该团队还希望开发一种能够在3D打印过程中监视粉末床内的局部温度的量子传感设备。根据Hwang的说法，该设备将以非破坏性的方式部署量子物理学来测量粉末床的局部温度。该计划是将量子传感器商业化，以为用户提供非破坏性诊断技术。
The project also has an educational element, and will seek to facilitate best practice, evidence-based learning and teaching strategies within the universities involved in the project. SFMRC researchers will also work wth elementary, middle school and high school teachers and students to make metal 3D printing more relatable and accessible.
Hwang said: “The research component is synergistically implemented into the education component so that whatever they find from the research, we can just push for an entrepreneurship mindset to come up with innovative ideas for business and then economic activities.”
物质研发
A plethora of material-focused research is currently underway within the field of metal 3D printing, and there have been significant advances in recent years.
In 2019, scientists at劳伦斯·利弗莫尔国家实验室（llnl），SLAC国家加速器实验室（SLAC）和Ames Laboratoryused X-ray imaging to identify thecauses of defects in metal 3D printed partsand understand how such flaws can be prevented. Since then, the金属3D打印材料的氢含水has been investigated by researchers at theUniversity of Texas at San Antonio, and a study by theUniversity of Washingtonlooked into theeffects of metal powder reuseon 3D printed part quality.
In April last year, scientists fromTexas A&M Universitydiscovered a method of 3D printing martensiticsteel free from porosity据称这是迄今为止任何3D印刷合金的最高拉伸强度。在LLNL的其他地方还研究了3D印刷金属零件的减少缺陷，研究人员能够在那里进行。reduce the ‘splatter’ of rogue material在激光粉末融合（LPBF）过程中，并减少了与新鲜融合材料的散粉相互作用，以减少缺陷并提高每个金属层的质量。
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Featured image showsschematics of the planned convergent research cluster. Image via SFMRC proposal.
