Prof. Carolyn Conner Seepersad
ABSTRACT
Additive manufacturing (AM) is having a profound impact on the way engineers realize custom parts, and it is democratizing product design and manufacturing in unprecedented ways. Also known as 3D printing, AM is the use of additive technologies to fabricate objects, layer by layer. It enables a host of design opportunities including fabrication of customized and form-fitting parts directly from three-dimensional computer-aided design (CAD) models or imaging data; economical production of small lots of products; consolidation of parts into lightweight, complex assemblies; fabrication of complex lattice structures, internal channels, and multimaterial and functionally graded structures with different properties in different locations. In this talk, these design opportunities will be explored, along with the corresponding design challenges posed by AM. CAD/CAE tools need to support models with thousands or even millions of features with hierarchical size ranges from microns to meters. At the same time, these tools need to provide real-time feedback on the constraints and process-structure-property relationships relevant to specific AM technologies, as the parts are being designed. Furthermore, the democratization of AM relies on the development of user-friendly tools for creating and customizing digital 3D models. With AM, we can imagine a future in which customers design their own products on their own computers, rather than being forced to simply select an option from a catalog. Meanwhile, engineers can tailor products with seemingly endless complexity. With the help of the engineering design community, AM is poised to unleash a wave of innovation with profound implications for the way we design and build our engineered world.
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
The 20th International Conference on Engineering Design, 27-30th July 2015, Politecnico di Milano Milan, Italy