UW-Madison to lead $9.1 million AM project for mission-critical parts

According to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the institution is leading a new $9.1 million project funded by the US Office of Naval Research that aims to enable broader usage of additive manufacturing technologies, especially in the fabrication of mission-critical components.

Mechanical Engineering Professor Xiaoping Qian is the lead principal investigator on the project, which includes UW-Madison mechanical engineering faculty Curt Bronkhorst, Lianyi Chen, Shiva Rudraraju, Krishnan Suresh, and Jinlong Wu. Researchers from GE Aerospace Research, GE Additive, and Intact Solutions are also participating in the project.

The goal of the project is to develop computational methods for efficient qualification of additively manufactured parts and to exploit mechanical property variability in AM, such as changes in microstructures and porosity, as well as increased design freedom for process-part co-design. Such process-part co-design will essentially treat process variability as a feature instead of an obstacle in quality control. The researchers aim to simultaneously optimize process control variables, part geometry, and material properties in which material properties will be varied through AM process control. This research is expected to lead to increased part performance and ease AM process control.