Design and Process Modeling for Manufacturing Custom Product

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Additive manufacturing (AM), a.k.a. 3D printing, has been developed at exceptional rates and has a growing impact in many important applications such as automotive, aerospace, medical, electronics, commercial, and fashion industries. This promising approach will change the nature of manufacturing in product design and fabrication. The most attractive capability of AM is that it can produce custom products without much increasing in time, material, or cost, which makes “complexity for free”. Custom product offers inherent advantages over their mass produced counterparts. They can provide more comfort, unique aesthetic appeal, or better performance. The ultimate goal of this research program is to enhance the current fundamental knowledge regarding on the necessary design and manufacturing techniques to evolve the traditional mass production to mass customization.***To utilize the capability of AM, the proposed research will go beyond our current understanding of the traditional Computer-Aided Design (CAD) system towards the new design spaces enabled by AM for custom product design. New representations and design rules will be developed to link the characteristics of AM processes. Advanced technologies in design and process modeling for four-dimensional (4D) printing (the fourth dimension is time) will be investigated to create smart structures that are shell-like, lightweight, and can be self-shaping, self-folding, or self-assembly. Sophisticated simulations will be developed to visualize and predict the manufacturing process. In-situ process monitoring and close-loop feedback system will also be developed to improve the manufacturing repeatability and product consistency.***This research will strengthen the competitiveness of Canada's global leadership in advanced manufacturing and build up important collaboration with industrial research partners in various fields of applications, which provides the economy with a supply of high-tech jobs and inspires the next generation of Canadians to purse science and engineering. Highly qualified personnel (HQP) at different levels (PhDs, Masters, and Undergraduate students) will be trained. They will gain highly demanded skills and expertise in many high technology sectors in Canada. These HQPs will work in a stimulating, dynamic, and collaborative environment to research and answer the state-of-the-art research questions.