Smart Additive Manufacturing

ABSTRACT:  There is a lot of excitement about the potential of smart manufacturing (involving the use of information, automation, computation, software, sensing, and networking technologies) to revolutionize the manufacturing industry, e.g., by boosting manufacturing quality and productivity at low cost. An excellent application for such “smart” technologies is additive manufacturing (AM), another area of manufacturing that is gaining a lot of traction but is plagued by quality, productivity and cost issues. In this talk, I will share some of my research results in smart AM, aimed at enhancing AM quality and productivity at low cost using smart technologies. Specifically, I will discuss our work on speeding up 3D printers at low cost using advanced controls and cloud computing. I will also discuss our new research on intelligent online optimization of scan sequence to minimize thermal induced defects in laser powder bed fusion AM. Finally, I will give a brief overview of efforts I am leading at the University of Michigan to integrate smart AM into our educational curriculum.

BIOGRAPHY:  Chinedum Okwudire received his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of British Columbia in 2009 and joined the Mechanical Engineering faculty at the University of Michigan in 2011. Prior to joining Michigan, he was the mechatronic systems optimization team leader at DMG Mori USA, based in Davis, CA. His research is focused on exploiting knowledge at the intersection of machine design, control and, more-recently, computer science, to boost the performance of manufacturing automation systems at low cost. Chinedum has received a number of awards including the CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation; the Young Investigator Award from the International Symposium on Flexible Automation; the Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers; the Ralph Teetor Educational Award from SAE International; and the Russell Severance Springer Visiting Professorship from UC Berkeley. He has co-authored a number of best paper award winning papers in the areas of manufacturing automation, control and mechatronics.