A framework for teaching the fundamentals of additive manufacturing and enabling rapid innovation

Abstract

The importance of additive manufacturing (AM) to the future of product design and manufacturing systems demands educational programs tailored to embrace its fundamental principles and its innovative potential. Moreover, the breadth and depth of AM spans several traditional disciplines, presenting a challenge to instructors yet giving the opportunity to integrate knowledge via creative and challenging projects. This paper presents our approach to teaching AM at the graduate and advanced undergraduate level, in the form of a 15-week course developed and taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The lectures begin with indepth technical analysis of the major AM processes, then focus on special topics including design methods, machine controls, and applications of AM toward current industry needs and emerging materials and length scales. In lab sessions, students operate and characterize desktop AM machines, and work in teams to design and fabricate a bridge having maximum strength per unit weight while conforming to geometric constraints. The class culminates in a semester-long team design-build project; in a single semester of the course, teams created prototype machines for printing molten glass, soft-serve ice cream, biodegradable (chitosan) material, carbon fiber composites, performing large-area parallel extrusion, and for in situ optical scanning during printing. Several of these projects led to patents, future research, and peer-reviewed publications. We conclude that AM education, while arguably rooted in mechanical engineering, must be truly multidisciplinary, and education programs must embrace this context. We also comment on our experiences adapting this course to a manufacturing-focused master's degree program and a oneweek professional short program.2

Cost models of additive manufacturing: A literature review

“…Lifecycle cost, sustainability, supply chain and production costs have been less focused on. General aspects of AM (Bikas et al, 2015;Bogers et al, 2016;Brans, 2013;Cardaropoli et al, 2012a;Ferro et al, 2016;Gao et al, 2015;Go & Hart, 2016;Hedrick et al, 2015;Kianian et al, 2016;Lindemann et al, 2015;Mellor et al, 2014;Muita et al, 2015;Nickels, 2016;Rayna & Striukova, 2016;Scholz et al, 2016;Winkless, 2015;Wits et al, 2016;Wong & Hernandez, 2012); industry (Brettel et al, 2016;Gaub, 2015;Fera & Macchiaroli, 2010;Stock & Seliger, 2016); implications of its use (Bogers et al, 2016;Huang et al;Newman et al, 2015;Rayna & Striukova, 2016); example of its application (Caiazzo et al, 2013;Cardaropoli et al, 2012b;Gupta et al, 2016;Huang et al;Uhlmann et al, 2015;Wits et al, 2016); flexibility (Brettel et al, 2016;Cox et al, 2016) and technology selection (Newman et al, 2015) allow us to contextualize AM in an actual production system. There are many papers on mechanical characteristics, microstructures and properties (Brugo et al, 2016;Hinojos et al, 2016;Huynh et al;List et al, 2014;<...>…”

University Education in Additive Manufacturing and the Need to Boost Design Aspects

“…However, as already underlined in the Introduction, the efforts paid so far are not sufficient to address the current challenge. Go and Hart (2016) found that AM while rooted in mechanical engineering and materials science is truly multidisciplinary and education programs should be tailored and designed based on the audiences. In addition, they also found that project-based AM course with clear scope and goals helped secure collaborative industrial research with financial support, whereas the use of digitally archived content on AM and related topics helped students of diverse academic backgrounds to adapt to the curriculum.…”

Local Viscosity Control Printing for High-Throughput Additive Manufacturing of Polymers

“…14 The authors thank Professor A. John Hart and the course staff for their support. Professor Sanjay Sarma provided funding for the second-generation test setup.…”