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Multi Scale Additive Manufacturing Laboratory

Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, University of Waterloo

Presenter:

Mihaela Vlasea,

Associate Prof., Co-Director MSAM Lab

mihalea.vlasea@uwaterloo.ca

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WHAT IS ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING?

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additive manufacturing customization potentials

micro

meso

macro

2:30s

What is Additive Manufacturing or 3D printing? It is the process of fusing units of material together, layer-by-layer, to create 3D parts from a digital design file.

In this video at the top, we see one example of a metal additive manufacturing technique, called laser powder bed fusion. In this process, thin layers of powder with a layer thickness smaller than a human hair, are spread and selectively molten at specific locations within each layer by using a fine laser beam spot. The sequence is continued until the parts are completed.

This approach of fusing units of material together is what gives additive manufacturing the ability to fully customize parts, with a high degree of freedom and at multiple scales.

At the micro-scale, one may influence the microstructural properties, part density, surface topography. One can even print with multiple materials in one part.

At the meso-scale, one may influence functional properties via cellular architectured designs such as lattices. Lattices can be used, for instance to lightweight components.

And, of course, at the macro level, we have new design freedoms which are not available via other manufacturing techniques, as can be seen in the cross-section of the rocket engine nozzle design. In this case, lattices were used to control cooling of the nozzle.

As you can see, customization freedoms at the micro-, meso-, macro- scale completely enable new performance capabilities and innovative products.

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ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY HIGHLIGHTS

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ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES

1:30s

Through additive manufacturing, we transform raw materials into complex products, all in one machine, without the need for complex tooling.

This means that we have the opportunity to not only innovate in product design and performance, but also to significantly simplify supply chains. This is done by:

by shortening the production life cycle from concept to part
by reducing the number of parts via consolidating assemblies
by bringing production closer to the end-user

These are a few examples of products that we have built in collaboration with industry. Such products include:

a radial fan, an electrical busbar, powertrain gear, and a turbine generator rotor produced using low-cost powders
as well as rocket and microsatellite fuel nozzles that were targeting performance optimization via design; these were made using Ni-based superalloys

These technologies require research advancements to be able to go from powder to part.

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MULTI-SCALE ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING LAB

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UWaterloo MSAM Lab

6 AM Faculty

>18 Affiliated Faculty

20,000 ft²facilities

All classes of metal AM

Industry Collaborations

NSERC HIAM
University of Waterloo (lead)
University of British Columbia
University of Alberta
University of Toronto
McGill University
Université Laval
Dalhousie University

ONTARIO

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MSAM leverages high-end equipment and unique Canadian expertise in:

MSAM COMPETENCIES

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Materials and process development for AM

Advanced material development/customization
Robust process recipes through advanced modeling and statistical designs
High performance characterization techniques

Next generation AM machines and technologies

Innovative additive manufacturing processes
Custom additive manufacturing systems
Scalable additive manufacturing solutions
Innovative embedded sensor technologies

Algorithms and software solutions for AM

Data fusion and analytics using machine learning
Innovative simulation and modeling algorithms
Custom topology optimization design solutions

20s

Please join us at the Booth #8 to learn more about our research competencies spanning materials and product development, all the way to machine development and software solutions.

In our day-to-day, we work on solving some interesting challenges in the field of additive manufacturing.

The first challenge:

Is to tackle the adoption of new materials for additive manufacturing processes, specifically metals, which can enable new supply chains and market sector opportunities.

The second challenge:

Is to work on the next generation of machines and custom manufacturing systems, either for research discovery, or in partnership with industry

The third challenge:

Is to leverage data science, modeling and simulation - towards improving the digital tools that ensure manufacturability of components in additive manufacturing

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mme-msam@uwaterloo.ca

msam-uwaterloo.ca