Events

Metal Additive Manufacturing: Issues to be solved, opportunities to be exploited

Additive Manufacturing (AM), or as it is popularly called, 3-D printing, has stirred a great deal of interest in a broad and diverse number of areas.  Everything from printing of complex jet turbine parts to human organs has been discussed and is being researched.  One of the areas where significant levels of development is being employed is in metal alloy parts for aerospace and other areas requiring precision, high performance parts.  Many AM technologies have been commercialized and these machines are quite capable of producing solid parts with low porosities.  However, methods to qualify these parts are lacking and many machines and geometries result in varying properties in the same material.

Still, the properties of metal alloys are dependent on microstructural features, that turn out to be complicated in material deposited with AM.  Many new and interesting phenomena has been observed and still baffle researchers.  In this presentation, the pitfalls and opportunities of this exciting new processing method will be discussed, with emphasis on the research that still must be carried out to make such technologies viable for critical parts.  Most of all, the exciting possibilities of new products and new materials will be discussed.  The future for this technology is bright, but still remains tantalizingly a few years away.

Joseph W. Newkirk is Professor of Metallurgical Engineering in the Materials Science & Engineering Department at the Missouri University of Science and Technology and the current President of Alpha Sigma Mu. He is a Fellow of both Alpha Sigma Mu and ASM International. He is also an Associated Faculty of Manufacturing Engineering. His research interests are mostly concerned with developing and fabricating high performance metallic materials. Current research areas include additive manufacturing, powder metallurgy, wear and corrosion resistant alloys, high temperature materials, aerospace materials, and nuclear materials.

His education includes a BS and MS in Physics from Miami University and a PhD in Materials Science from the University of Virginia. He holds research positions in the Center for Advanced Manufacturing Technology and the Graduate Center for Materials Research.  Prior to joining the faculty at Missouri S&T he was a Research Scientist in the Major Analytical Instrumentation Center at the University of Florida and a Research Engineer at the Homer Research Laboratories of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.  He serves on several editorial boards of journals, has over 185 technical papers and two US Patents; edited six books and contributed eight chapters to other technical handbooks and publications. He is currently co-writing a book on materials for additive manufacturing.