Youngstown State University has been awarded $1.9 million through America Makes, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (driven by the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining), and the Air Force Research Laboratory to investigate the repair process for tooling using an additive/subtractive (hybrid) process technology. This project is a continuation of the hub-and-spoke consortium on hybrid manufacturing that has been active in the Youngstown, Ohio area for the last several years.
Other project participants include the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory; The University of Texas at El Paso; The Georgia Institute of Technology; and The Youngstown Business Incubator. The team will investigate different hybrid technologies based on wire, powder or a combination of both to repair metallic parts and tooling of interest to the industrial sector.
“This grant will allow the Youngstown area to remain an integral participant in the national effort to incorporate advanced manufacturing platforms in real world challenges and applications,” said Pedro Cortes, Professor of Chemical Engineering, who will lead the effort for YSU.
This award is being carried out in collaboration with Jackie Ruller, director of the Excellence Training Center (ETC), and John Carballo, machinist at ETC; as well as YSU STEM professors Brian Vuksanovich, Holly Martin, Virgil Solomon, and Bharat Yelamanchi, who will work to deliver successful results in specific topic areas.
The project uses a laser hot wire cladding Directed Energy Deposition Mazak 3D printer, which was installed at YSU’s ETC last year. The printer takes advantage of the interwoven benefits associated with the additive process (production of complex shapes and incorporation of cooling channels) and traditional machining (surface finish quality and tight dimensional tolerances) to provide restored metallic tooling and end-use parts.
America Makes is the nation’s leading public-private partnership for additive manufacturing (AM) technology and education. America Makes members from industry, academia, government, workforce and economic development organizations, work together to accelerate the adoption of AM and the nation’s global manufacturing competitiveness. Founded in 2012 as the Department of Defense’s national manufacturing innovation institute for AM and first of the Manufacturing USA network, America Makes is based in Youngstown, Ohio, and managed by the not-for-profit National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM).
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