Smart Additive Manufacturing for Sustainability and Reliability – SAMSARA

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has been described as having potential to enable sustainability through the circular flow of materials. For example, techniques such as directed energy deposition have been proposed as methods to remanufacture or repair components to extend their lifetime considerably. However, these processes are complex and can lead to processing defects that can reduce the structural reliability of the remanufactured material. This project will consider the balance of reducing energy costs while maintaining structural reliability. We will use smart manufacturing tools (such as physics-based and surrogate modeling) to integrate computer models with manufacturing to help optimize the AM process. We seek to develop new strategies that that can reduce the energy required but still retain sufficient mechanical properties for advanced engineering applications.