A grant earned by a researcher at UT Arlington for state-of-the-art hybrid additive-subtractive manufacturing equipment could have implications for working deep in the sea or even the harsh conditions on Mars.
Emma Yang, an industrial engineering researcher at UT Arlington, received the grant from the Department of Defense to purchase the equipment. The grant’s amount was not disclosed.
“This equipment will help us determine how the Navy could use hybrid manufacturing to effectively and efficiently repair and remanufacture parts,” Yang said. “With this machine, if you have a defective part or one that is worn from use, you can just fix the part instead of having to replace it. The Navy could use this on a ship at sea, and if you combine zero-gravity printing, you could eventually print parts where resources and tools are very limited, like on Mars.”
Solving problems on the fly
The university said that the project will improve manufacturing capabilities at UTA for printing a wide range of metals and alloys. Yang is an assistant professor in the Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Department and is an expert in additive and sustainable manufacturing.
UTA said that the hybrid machine has a multimodal in-situ monitoring system that includes a high-speed camera, infrared temperature sensor, melt pool monitor, and ultrasound inspection.
The machine will allow Yang and her team to identify fabrication anomalies during the printing process so they can be corrected immediately, rather than finding the problem after the print is complete, UTA said.
The university called the equipment critical to the education of the next generation of scientists and engineers. It added that Yang plans to develop a bilingual English/Spanish virtual training platform for hybrid manufacturing that integrates knowledge and research findings generated from the machine.
Funding for minority-serving institutions
Funding for the project is from Historically Black Colleges and Universities/Minority-Serving Institution grants provided by the Department of Defense to fund programs that will improve the capabilities of those institutions to conduct research and educate scientists and engineers in areas important to national defense, the university said.
UTA said it earned the Hispanic-Serving Institution designation in 2014.
More than 570 universities are designated as Hispanic-Serving Institutions by the U.S. Department of Education.
Among them, UTA is No. 3 for awarding bachelor’s degrees to African American students, No. 12 for Asian American students, No. 15 for Hispanic students, No. 10 for Native American students, and No. 8 for total minority students, according to the magazine Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.
Get on the list.
Dallas Innovates, every day.
Sign up to keep your eye on what’s new and next in Dallas-Fort Worth, every day.
R E A D N E X T
-
From Lockheed Martin to NASA to SpaceX, Texas is a hotbed of aerospace activity. Now UT Arlington and Texas A&M want to make that hotbed even hotter—by collaborating to advance the state's aerospace defense manufacturing community.
-
Seoul-based SK Signet said its new Plano facility will produce a range of fast-charging solutions, including providing the first U.S.-manufactured ultra-fast chargers and power cabinets that offer more than 350kW of power. Expected to reach full capacity by July 2023, the facility will bring up to 183 highly skilled jobs and produce more than 10,000 fast chargers per year.
-
Buttram says there are "so many careers to choose from—and we're making sure Mesquite connects the best and brightest!" The city plans to do that on October 14 by holding its third annual Manufacturing Day at Vanguard High School, 4201 Faithon P. Lucas Sr. Blvd. in Mesquite. Presented by the Mesquite Business Retention and Expansion Task Force, the event aims to connect Mesquite ISD juniors and seniors—as well as Dallas College students—with local manufacturers and manufacturing careers.
-
Beauty Manufacturing Solutions Corp. already operates a plant from its home base in Coppell. But with the help of $2 million in incentives from the city of Fort Worth, it plans to add a new high-tech, $150 million plant at the Alliance Gateway 2 building in Fort Worth's AllianceTexas development.
-
Founded in 1981, Sierra Machinery is a premier full-service distributor of construction, mining, and industrial equipment, representing Volvo Construction Equipment, Doosan, Gradall Excavators, Chicago Pneumatic, Gomaco, Terex MPS, Etnyre, and Epiroc, Superior Broom, Bomag, and SkyJack. ROMCO goes back even further, serving the Texas equipment market since 1961.
