It’s easy to miss the new lab space tucked into a corner of the Herbert Wertheim Laboratory for Engineering Excellence. In this hermetically sealed room, students are outfitted with clean suits and air filtration devices. Sparks are flying. Lasers are blasting.
In this space, the long-awaited Renishaw AM-400 laser melting system — more accurately, a laser powder bed fusion printer — is running, having recently undergone required maintenance. This kind of additive manufacturing, known as L-PBF, is essentially a 3D printer that prints with metal. It can be configured to use titanium, stainless steel, aluminum, and others. It is now ready for service at UF.
And thanks to Jia “Peter” Liu, Ph.D., an Industrial Systems & Engineering (ISE) associate professor at the University of Florida, students finally have access to it.
Liu is the Trey Lauderdale Faculty Fellow in UF’s ISE Department. He’s also the new custodian of this technological marvel.
The printer spreads a layer of metallic powder and selectively melts it using a laser, guided by powerful 3D modeling software, Autodesk Fusion. Liu plans to leverage the power of Autodesk Fusion to conduct research, training, and workforce development in metal 3D printing.
Liu has already used the printer as an important tool to train students, especially undergraduate students. He hand-picked four students to undergo training for the printer. The training is critical for operation, as the handling of metallic powder requires special attention. ISE doctoral student Ezazul Sabuz and undergraduate students Tyler Rosenthal (ISE), Lucas Salas (MAE) and Praveen Prabaharan (MAE) are officially the only UF students currently qualified to operate the AM400 system.
“Training on the AM400 system has been an amazing opportunity to gain experience with cutting-edge L-PBF technology, and I am grateful to the university for this experience,” Salas said. “I hope to design parts for L-PBF manufacturing, as I believe this technology has a strong future in critical industries that produce complex, lightweight parts.”
Liu is bullish on this type of additive manufacturing.
“Printers like the AM-400 can reduce the lead time in manufacturing and establish a flexible and secure supply chain,” he said. “Instead of having multiple pieces built by different manufacturers, transported, and assembled later, any discrete component can now be built on a single machine,” he added.
Additive manufacturing is especially useful for producing shapes and profiles that are difficult to manufacture using traditional methods. Other advantages include extremely quick turnaround, design freedom and efficient use of materials. For instance, for aerospace applications, where weight is of critical importance, components that normally would be assembled with connectors or welds can instead be constructed as one unified piece, reducing weight and enhancing strength.
Liu also envisions the LPBF machine as an ideal platform to promote interdisciplinary research.
“I see collaboration potential in terms of materials development, new structural design for critical applications, smart manufacturing, quality control, AI and optimization and a secure supply chain for additive manufacturing,” he said. “There are great collaboration opportunities to work with industry and colleagues in HWCOE, especially with ISE, MSE, MAE, ECE, ESSIE and other colleges at UF, such as the College of Medicine.”