Category: AM Training

Digging Deep With Online 3D Printing Lectures

Screenshot of TTU Additive Manufacturing YouTube Channel
Tennessee Tech University YouTube Channel Featuring the Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Lecture Series since 2016.

The College of Engineering at Tennessee Tech recently completed its well-known Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Lecture Series for Fall 2020. Under Dr. Ismail Fidan and his team, four experts — from nearby Somerset Community College in Kentucky to institutions spanning the globe in New Zealand, Norway, and the Netherlands — presented this semester on advanced Additive Manufacturing topics.

With 45 lectures recorded since the Spring semester of 2016, there is a range and depth available for just about anyone interested in learning about Additive Manufacturing. We wrote about the Tennessee Tech Announces Fall 2020 Additive Manufacturing Lecture Series as the school year got started. Despite COVID-19 shifting the world into online classrooms, Dr. Fidan has been using this virtual method, via Zoom, since the start of the program. One could definitely say he is an early adopter and visionary for making learning accessible and increasing TTU’s Engineering student access to world-renowned experts.

Early in 2020, the team decided to launch a YouTube channel as a way to share all of these lectures to an even wider audience. You can access the full Additively Innovative Lecture Series Archive, but we list out the titles below so that you can get an idea of the topic and niche diversity. On the archive page, each title takes you directly to the YouTube video. Perusing the list on the YouTube channel is not as straightforward, in this editor’s opinion, and so your time may be better spent picking from the list of video links from the archive directly.

Again, Bravo to the TTU team and Dr. Fidan for a semester filled with knowledge sharing and deeper insights into what makes Additive Manufacturing (aka 3D Printing) useful, valuable, and world changing.

**Oh, and don’t forget to subscribe to their new YouTube channel.

To the Archives!:

Fall 2020 Lectures (Please note these lectures may not all be uploaded to YouTube yet)

      • Mass Production and Decision Making with Low Cost Additive Manufacturing for Institutions and Small Businesses
      • Design for AM: The Key to the Industrialization of AM
      • New Product Development for AM: Methods and Tools
      • Machine Learning in AM

Spring 2020 Lectures

      • New Functionalities for Metal AM by Embedded Intelligence, Puukko Pasi, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Ltd.
      • A Holistic Approach to Achieving the Best Possible Component Quality for AM Architectures for Vat Photopolymer and Laser Powder Bed Fusion Systems, David Bue Pedersen, Technical University of Denmark
      • Additive Manufacturing with High Temperature Polymers, Oana Ghita, University of Exeter
      • From 3D Printing to Digital Manufacturing, Wenchao Zhou, University of Arkansas

Fall 2019 Lectures

      • Generative Design Will Change the Future of Manufacturing, Shashi Jain, Intel Corporation
      • Sustaining Accessibility for Kids’ Creativity with Additive Manufacturing, Pisut Koomsap, Asian Institute of Technology
      • Design and Additive Manufacturing of Porous Titanium Scaffolds for Optimum Cell Viability in Bone Tissue Engineering, Bingbing Li, California State University
      • FDM-based Metal Additive Manufacturing, Haijun Gong, Georgia Southern University

Spring 2019 Lectures

      • The Phantom Hole Technique, Improving Structural Performance in FFF/FDM 3D Printed Products, Eric Wooldridge, Somerset Community College
      • Understanding Powder Bed Additive Manufacturing, Josh Dennis, EOS North America
      • Preparing Your Model for 3D Printing, Adam Wills, Tennessee College of Applied Technology Nashville
      • Project iGen: Using Additive Manufacturing for Service Learning, Amy Fricks, DeKalb County High School

Fall 2018 Lectures

      • Functionally Graded Additive Manufacturing, Eujin Pei, Brunel University
      • Design for Additive Manufacturing: The Key to the Industrial Adoption of Additive Manufacturing, Olaf Diegel, Lund University
      • Where’s my Spare Part? Changing Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul through Additive Manufacturing, Brett Conner, Youngstown State University
      • Integrating Additive Manufacturing into CAD Courses, Tom Singer, Sinclair Community College

Spring 2018 Lectures

      • Dental 3-D Printing Overview, Frank Alifui-Segbaya, Griffith University
      • AM Research and Applications for Real World Production and Impact, Eric Wooldridge, Somerset Community College
      • Free and Easy Software for Designing for 3-D Printing, Tim Gornet, Rapid Prototyping Center, University of Louisville
      • Wire + Arc Additive Manufacturing: Enabling 10-Meter Parts, Filomeno Martina, Welding Engineering and Laser Processing Center, Cranfield University

Fall 2017 Lectures

      • Next Generation Manufacturing: Professional and Technical Skills for the 21st Century Workforce, Karen Wosczyna-Birch, Center for Next Generation Manufacturing
      • Using 3-D Printed Parts to Couple Festo Didatic’s MecLab Stations in an Assembly Process, Khalid Tantawi, Department of Career Readiness-Mechatronics, Motlow State Community College
      • 3-D Printing, Design Thinking, and the Entrepreneurial Mindset, Phan Tran, Center for Architecture, Design, and Engineering, Lake Washington Institute of Technology
      • Workflow of the Additive Manufacturing Process, Kyle Bates-Green, National Resource Center for Materials Technology Education

Spring 2017 Lectures

      • Bioprinting and Tissue Engineering, Yunzhi Peter Yang, Medical Scholar Program in Bioengineering Scholarly Concentration, Stanford University
      • Making It Work, Marilyn Barger, NSF Florida Advanced Technological Education Center, Hillsborough Community College
      • Additive Manufacturing: Instrumental Systems in Research, Education, and Service, Bahram Asiabanpour, Ingram School of Engineering at Texas State University
      • A Technique for Quick Introduction of 3-D Design and Prototyping, Hugh Jack, School of Engineering and Technology, Western Carolina University

Fall 2016 Lectures

      • Marketing Your Maker Business, TJ McCue
      • Content and Curriculum Development Efforts in 3-D Printing, Jesse Roitenbert, Stratasys
      • The Development of a Framework for 3-D Printing, Casting, & Entrepreneurship, Jay Watson, Cookeville High School
      • 3-D Printed Joints and Connectors for Assemblies, Nick Russell and Jacob Floyd, Tennessee Tech University

Spring 2016 Lectures

      • Mel Cossette and Robin Ballard, National Resource Center for Materials Technology Education
      • 3-D Printing – Future of Manufacturing: The 4th Wave of Human Civilization, Wenchao Zhou, University of Arkansas
      • Additive Manufacturing at the University of Waterloo, Ehsan Toyserkani, University of Waterloo
      • Opportunities in Additive Manufacturing, Amy Elliott, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
      • AM/3DP Point-Counterpoint: A Look at AM’s Place Among the Headlines, Business, and Industry, Peter Yang, Stanford University
      • Additive Manufacturing as a Force for Innovation, Ian Campbell, Loughborough University
      • Perspectives on Additive Manufacturing, Tim Caffrey, Wohlers Associates
      • History of Additive Manufacturing, David Bourell, University of Texas at Austin
      • Additive Manufacturing Today and in the Future, Terry Wohlers, Wohlers Associates

 

Mass Production And Decision Making With Low Cost Additive Manufacturing

With over 7,000 face shield assemblies 3D printed, 1,000 ear savers (that make it possible to get a mask strap off the back of your ears), and 272,000 grams of filament used, Somerset Community College’s (SCC) Additive Manufacturing Center (AMC) stepped up in a major way to 3D print personal protective equipment (PPE) for Kentucky’s first responders in this COVID-pandemic time of need.

Professor Eric Wooldridge recently spoke at the Tennessee Tech University Fall 2020 Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Lecture Series on September 27, 2020 to encourage future 3D printing business owners and other academic institutions how they might leverage 3D printers in the future. For the SCC AMC, the majority of their printers cost less than $415 which helped them build a 24/7 production line of dozens of 3D printers, using two or less operators per day.

Wooldridge and SCC have received funding from the USDA Rural Development program as well as the National Science Foundation EPSCoR and ATE programs. The funding has been instrumental in building out a successful 3D printing training program as well as a robust production facility, as demonstrated by answering this call to serve first responders with PPE. The SCC Additive Manufacturing (AM) goal is to give Kentucky manufacturing an edge by helping to raise up a fully skilled AM-skilled workforce. A task that the SCC team seems well-prepared for after this PPE experience. 

In fact, that’s what the “Mass Production And Decision Making With Low Cost Additive Manufacturing For Institutions And Small Businesses” webinar offered. It gave an inside look at how a small team could scale up a 3D printer production line as a way to make new products. In the talk, Professor Wooldridge offered a variety of insights and technical tips as he walked attendees, including industry representatives, through decisions the AMC made, including mistakes they quickly corrected, in printing thousands of shields and parts. 

Low Cost Additive Manufacturing (LCAM)

First, what is a low cost 3D printer? SCC’s goal is to take a sub-$600 printer and show business owners how to make money with it. Once they demonstrate that, he sees owners take it from there. Low cost equipment can create a high quality production line. If they have 3D printers and 3D skills, it leads to innovation.

Before you jump in and start printing. Wooldridge believes you need to look at three main areas:

  • Design
  • Cycling
  • Maintenance

Part of these three areas involve asking four key questions (any company or organization would want to ask these):

  1. How big is your team? (Small businesses are often under-staffed, so this is important)
  2. What is your design flavor? (If you like to only create the models, that won’t work if you don’t like to print, too). You have control of the layout on the printer, the printer speed, are there non-essential features that are essential? 
      • Within design — you have to think about your production. 
        • Are you a “Fast Ninja”?  
        • Are you a “Slow Stacked” approach? 
        • Or in the middle is the “Flat Spread” type?
  1. Production cycling, what do you most care about?
  2. Do you want to do proactive or reactive maintenance? Which one will minimize your downtime? 

Wooldridge digs in and keeps the talk moving quickly with rapid fire answers to his questions. In this short 30-minute lecture, you will get lots of very specific technical advice in addition to broad ranging issues you should think about. 

An example: In the section on Cycling, he points out that one of the biggest enemies is runout; running out of filament. “Runout sensors that warn you that you are ‘about to run out’ of material are cool, but not the answer. The idea that your printer would warn you that you were running out of filament was not helpful in the middle of 20 or 30 printers going at once after 15 hours of run time. Quantity is the solution — getting large orders of filament with 3kg or 5kg rolls — what we call the Texas Size rolls (that’s where we ordered them from),” Wooldridge said.

The SCC team naturally found it was super rewarding to be able to help their community. Wooldridge closes the talk with how it was wonderful to be in a position to respond “with Additive to support our regions, we sent across state lines as well. It was great to be in the middle and answer that call.” 

Ultimately, he concludes: “This pandemic has been a real turning point for Additive. It has made people realize what is possible. And you can see it in the industry response. You see how many companies are starting to now buy into higher-level equipment, buying up printers. The number of print farms that are being setup is drastically increasing. People have realized that this technology has the potential to step in and fill gaps wherever they are. Or allow someone to startup with a brand new business with hardly any infrastructure to begin with, in terms of manufacturing.” 

Learn more about SCC and Professor Wooldridge’s efforts to increase workforce training and small business awareness of 3D printing as a way to grow a company and profits. 

You can also read posts on the NSF Research News page: College using 3D printers to make face shields for regional hospital or on the Somerset Community College news page: SCC 3D Printers Used for Face Shields to Help Ease Shortage Due to Virus. The project was funded under the NSF ATE program here: Mobile Additive Manufacturing Platform for 21st Century STEM Workforce Enhancement (#1902437).

Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Lecture Series Spring 2020

The College of Engineering at Tennessee Tech is organizing its ninth Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Lecture Series for Spring 2020. Under Dr. Ismail Fidan’s leadership, he and his team coordinate with top-notch speakers from around the world. A combination of experts from academia and industry are recruited to share cutting edge knowledge with university students and anyone who simply has a desire to keep learning about additive manufacturing. 

The web-based presentations are shared via the free Zoom platform. On the dates listed, simply visit  Zoom URL ( tntech.zoom.us/j/432789883 ) at 11am Central Standard Time and you can listen in to the 30-minute lecture/discussion. Mark your calendars for one or all of these excellent presentations.

Thursday, February 6

New functionalities for metal AM by embedded intelligence

With Puukko Pasi, Research Team Leader, Advanced Manufacturing Technologies VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd., Espoo, Finland

Thursday, March 5

Integrated statistical/experimental methodologies for rapid and cost-effective optimization of process parameters in additive manufacturing

With Ehsan Toyserkani, Ph.D., Professor and Canada Research Chair in Additive Manufacturing, Director of Multi-Scale Additive Manufacturing Lab, Director of Pan-Canadian NSERC/CFI Strategic Network for Holistic Innovation in Additive Manufacturing (HI-AM), Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, University of Waterloo, Canada

Thursday, March 26

A holistic approach to achieving the best possible component quality for AM architectures for vat photopolymer and laser powder bed fusion systems

With David Bue Pedersen, Ph.D., Senior Researcher, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark

Thursday, April 9

Additive Manufacture with High Temperature Polymers

With Oana Ghita, Ph.D., Chair and Professor of Materials Science and Manufacturing in the College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, Academic Lead of Centre for Additive Layer Manufacturing (CALM), University of Exeter, United Kingdom

Thursday, April 23

From 3D Printing to Digital Manufacturing

With Wenchao Zhou, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Arkansas

The Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Virtual Lecture Series is partially funded by the NSF Award 1601587, “AM-WATCH: Additive Manufacturing-Workforce Advancement Training Coalition and Hub”. The archive of past Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Virtual Lectures is found here.

Tennessee Tech Sends Two Students To M-STEM 2019 Workshop

Earlier this year, Tennessee Tech (TTU) created and built an innovative mobile 3D printer. After a number of improvements since the launch, the team of Ankit Gupta and Seymur Hasanov, both graduate research assistants and PhD candidates, represented the TechBot project for TTU. 

After his keynote, Ames Lab scientist, Dr. Iver Anderson (and other M-STEM presenters) spent the afternoon reviewing student entries in the Poster competition and interviewing each student or team. If you are interested in a brief overview of his Keynote presentation, you can read about it here and watch a short video compilation of his main points: M-STEM 2019 Keynote: Meet Climate Change Challenges with Clean Energy Innovations.

Editor’s Note: Due to the large and public area where the posters were displayed, it has quite a bit of background noise, however we tried to diminish that as much as possible (which still did not make much of an impact). 

Ankit Gupta and Seymur Hasanov explain how the new TechBot can print with different materials and how they tested each material for its strength and other traits. The TechBot tests currently included paste-based materials, such as cake frosting, floor paint, and concrete. It is also offered as a do-it-yourself (DIY) kit (assembly required). The project is funded through NSF Award 1601587, Additive Manufacturing Workforce Advancement Training Coalition and Hub (AM-WATCH) under the leadership of Dr. Ismail Fidan (Leader) and Dr. Michael Allen (Co-Leader). 

AM News reported in detail on their work: Tennessee Tech Launches New Mobile Multitasking 3D Printer. 

Update: We forgot to share an important video from earlier in 2019 – it is embedded below, but if you cannot see it in-post, then click the TechBot launch video. It is a must-watch. 

M-STEM 2019 Keynote: Meet Climate Change Challenges with Clean Energy Innovations

With M-STEM 2019 focused on Earth, Energy, and the Environment, Ames Lab scientist, Dr. Iver Anderson’s keynote described how climate change is challenging the scientific community to drive clean energy innovations. 

At the Ames Lab, a U.S. Department of Energy research facility operated by Iowa State University, Dr. Anderson leads out in how materials can renew energy. The future of cheaper, cleaner, and more efficient means of creating energy were areas that Dr. Anderson shared in his keynote at M-STEM. 

As you will see in the short video clip of his talk, he explains how energy and energy generation is changing in the USA and worldwide. His goal included giving participants  new data; statistics and insights into renewable energy and the urgency to do more about it. He starts with looking at global electricity generation distribution, that is, how coal, natural gas, solar, and wind, among other methods are in use today. 

In his keynote, he tackles some of the thorny issues around greenhouse gas emissions by energy type and that Lignite (soft and dirty coal) and Coal are the biggest contributors. These greenhouse contributors are the obvious targets of alternative energy sources, such as wind, solar, and water. The cost of power generation is going down and the price of natural gas is so low and so much more efficient, that coal is going down in use in the U.S. and around the world. 

He highlights that it is important to remember that although Wind and Solar are coming up, Natural Gas and Coal are base load — add electrical capacity all the time, 24-hours a day, and energy from those kinds of power plants are still needed. Wind and solar are not the base load provider, so there has to be a mix. In addition, the average cost of energy in North America shows how solar has decreased in cost to be very close to wind generated power and natural gas costs. 

He closes this video section with who is moving the fastest to convert coal plants to renewable sources and China is the winner there. They have a huge dam as a hydroelectric source and are building large scale wind farms. In Europe, Germany has banned nuclear power and is building offshore power; they are the second biggest producer of wind power behind the United Kingdom. But the one renewable power source that wins every prediction: Solar Photovoltaic (PV).