Momentum - The Magazine for Virginia Tech Mechanical Engineering Vol. 1 No. 3 | Page 12

12 DREAMS lab wins America Makes challenge Virginia Tech’s Design, Research, and Education for Additive Manufacturing Systems (DREAMS) Lab received first place in the Innovation Sprint, a national competition sponsored by America Makes, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, a part of the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI). The team answered an Innovation Sprint call focused on smart structures and developed a printed wing section that demonstrates an additive manufacturing process capable of fabricating parts with integrated sensing and actuation. The design was presented at the America Makes Program Review and Members Meeting Sept. 28. “Our goal is to use additive manufacturing to fabricate mechatronic devices – products that can both move, and have on-board sensing to detect and control that movement,” said Chris Williams, associate professor of mechanical engineering and DREAMS lab director. “To demonstrate our progress toward this goal, we 3-D printed a multimaterial wing with a control surface – that is the flap of the wing – that is both adjusted and controlled by embedded VIDEO Construction of the printed wing and sensor integration. actuators and sensors.” The team created the wing with pre-designed pockets to hold the embedded objects. The 3-D printing process is paused so components can be added to the wing pockets, and the printing is resumed. “We’ve been researching the potential of embedding foreign objects into 3-D printed multimaterial products since 2011,” Williams said. “What makes this design unique is it’s the first time we’ve combined all that work into a single product. We have embedded actuation, strain and temperature sensing, and two different antennae into the wing.” Embedding components eliminates post-process assembly and simplifies the manufacturing process to a single step on a single machine. The embedding process also protects the sensors and circuits from environmental effects. As a single part, the structure doesn’t have the inherent weaknesses that come from seams found in assembled products. Williams said the DREAMS Lab entry creates potential for future innovation. “We’re demonstrating that tomorrow’s intelligent products cannot rely on today’s manufacturing processes and materials,” he said. “We are advancing 3-D printing by combining different aspects of component inclusion to answer the need of new production technologies.” The efforts of Williams and his lab have earned Virginia Tech membership to the institute for a year. “While the win is great for us as a lab, all Virginia Tech faculty are now eligible to compete in America Makes project calls and join a national academic/industrial network to seed future collaborations and projects in additive manufacturing,” Williams said. The team included ME postdoc Donald Aduba, of Kansas City, Missouri; doctoral students Logan Sturm, of Bedford, Virginia, and Joseph Kubalak, of Franklin, Tennessee; and electrical and computer engineering senior Richard Dumene, of Leesburg, Virginia.