Project Description: This internship will support ongoing research thrusts related to improving quality, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness of Additive Manufacturing in the Manufacturing and Design Exploration Lab at UArizona (https://sites.arizona.edu/made-lab/). Additive manufacturing, which is often referred to as 3D printing, can enable the manufacture of complex, high performance parts for various aerospace applications, but it is limited by slow production times, inconsistent quality, and high environmental impact. This internship will contribute to the building of predictive models related to sustainability, economic, and quality metrics and then to optimize to minimize cost and impact while maintaining acceptable quality. The internship will focus on two processes of interest: polymer material extrusion (specifically fused filament fabrication) and laser powder bed fusion.
NASA Relevance: Additive manufacturing (AM) can decrease payload weight for a variety of space missions by manufacturing complex, lightweight parts that are impossible to manufacture using other processes. Also AM can be beneficial for manufacture and repair in space. This internship supports the development of AM technologies for these applications.
Work Description:
- Collecting data on material and energy usage and process duration and failures.
- Coordinating with stakeholders at UArizona and other organizations to collect data for wide variety of AM machines.
- Organizing datasets related to energy usage, material usage, build times, print cost, and dimensional accuracy of printed parts.
- Conducting searches for related datasets and extracting relevant data.
- Using basic statistical analysis and programming skills to describe data and create predictive models.
Open or Reserved Project: 1 position reserved, but will consider new student if requested student not awarded.