|
Home
Research
Publications
Links
Personal
| |
 |
The bulk of my research pertains to one aspect or another of
rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing.
 |
Equipment
 |
A partial list of rapid prototyping and rapid
manufacturing equipment used in the lab can be viewed by following
the hyperlink.
|
|
|
| Electron Beam Melting (EBM) by Arcam
|
EBM is a relatively new direct-metal process that
fabricates fully dense metal parts using a high energy electron beam.
|
|
Our research interests include:
|
The development of new high performance materials
|
|
Optimization of the process parameters
|
|
Design of metallic structures with engineered
properties (strength, stiffness, porosity, etc)
|
|
|
Under certain conditions, we are willing to build sample
EBM parts on a contract basis. Please contact
me if you are interested in learning more.
|
|
|
Development of new prototyping processes
|
At the present time, our research group is
concentrating its efforts on a relatively new layered manufacturing
process known as 3D Laser Printing.
|
|
The basic principle involves laser printing one
thermoplastic cross sectional image on top of the next until a 3D
shape is built.
|
|
The most exiting aspect of this research is that it
can be used to print metal and/or ceramic particles that are coated
with a thermoplastic binder. The resulting part is debound and
sintered in a furnace using conventional methods (i.e. debinding and
sintering of metal or ceramic injection molded parts). This is our
primary thrust at the present moment.
|
|
Ashok Kumar at the University of Florida has a nice
3D laser printing setup that is worth checking out if you are
interested in the process.
|
|
| Adaptive slicing
|
Kittinan Unnannon, a PhD graduate of the group,
developed and implemented an adaptive slicing algorithm for the
SolidScape ModelMaker II prototyping process.
|
|
In order to implement his algorithm, Kittinan
performed an extensive series of tests in which he benchmarked
surface roughness of parts as a function of surface angle,
orientation, layer thickness, and several other parameters.
|
|
|
Teaching
|
Each fall semester, I teach a graduate course titled
IE 514 - Product Engineering
|
|
Each spring semester, I teach a graduate course
titled IE 791B - Rapid Prototyping
& Manufacturing
|
|
|
