Cold Gas Dynamics Manufacturing Process Development for Smart Parts

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Portrayed as “the next industrial revolution”, additive manufacturing (AM) is transforming consumer product design and manufacturing. AM differs drastically from traditional manufacturing methods (TMM) such as subtractive (milling or drilling), formative (casting or forging) and joining (welding or fastening) processes. ******AM of plastic parts is considered as the state-of-the-art. However, AM of metals and ceramics requires more extensive research and development efforts to expand the scope of applications to structural and high-performance functional parts. Efforts are required to reach maturation of AM as more work is required to understand the process parameters/process output relationships at the fundamental level (process mapping).******In recent years, uOttawa researchers have been instrumental in advancing the engineering science of Cold Gas Dynamic Spray Additive Manufacturing (CGDSAM). CGDSAM is still in its infancy, and can be considered as a (solid state) Material Jetting AM process for metals and cermets. Despite academic consensus that CGDSAM is a strong candidate for the market of large parts that are difficult/expensive to produce by TMM and early proof-of-concept successes, there is a lack of fundamental knowledge on what controls the process output. As such, the process “mapping” is required to allow process evaluation, improvement, transfer and commercial implementation. Furthermore the use of AM offers the potential to produce sensors allowing in-situ monitoring of AM mechanical parts performance. *********Studies have shown that CGDSAM can produce complex shapes of small dimension (mm-size) non-structural parts that are now used commercially. Recent work has focused on CGDSAM of titanium parts due to the large potential market as these are expensive and costly to machine using TMM. Demonstration of the CGDSAM process potential for sensor production has also recently been made.************Based on these recent progresses for potential market niche applications, the long-term objective of this program is to establish the CGDSAM process “map” and allow the production of cm-size titanium alloy parts imbedded with sensors for wireless in-situ performance monitoring of the produced parts. ******The outcome will establish the potential of CGDSAM for titanium alloy part production that don't require extremely fine intricate details and assess its advantage due to the process large throughput (orders of magnitudes beyond current existing AM processes) and the absence of “built tray” typically limiting the size of AM parts.***The positive outcome of this program will also make monitoring/transmission of in-situ performance possible. This could provide crucial feedback on parts performance for maintenance optimisation and failure prevention. It could also provide feedback for designers to allow refined modeling and revision of new designs.