MateriAlZ Seminar: Ryan Wicker
***CANCELLED***
Friday, Sept 30, 2022, 11:00 am Arizona Time
Ryan Wicker
Mr. and Mrs. MacIntosh Murchison Endowed Chaired Professor of Mechanical Engineering
University of Texas at El Paso
"Additive Manufacturing Enabled Excellence in Research, Education, and Economic Development"
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Abstract
The Keck Center for 3D Innovation at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), originally founded in 2000 and recently celebrating a groundbreaking on a new $80M building (shared with the Aerospace Center), represents a world-class advanced manufacturing research facility. The Keck Center has always promoted student engagement, professional development, and success through a commitment to strategic research excellence, providing its student participants with unparalleled educational opportunities. As an example, advanced research in Laser Powder Bed Fusion additive manufacturing (AM) of metals requires expertise across many disciplines, including advanced knowledge in experimental fluid mechanics, non-contact temperature measurements, microsecond level control, materials and metallurgy, data science and management, and more. As criticality of components produced via these technologies continues to increase, understanding the key elements of the process and their interactions and how these factors impact ultimate part performance is required so as to reduce processing variability and improve repeatability and reproducibility of manufactured components. With student success, research excellence and trust but verify experimentation mindsets, the Keck Center produces next generation AM thinkers and doers with an approach rooted in fundamentals and process transparency. Several examples of the breadth and depth of research enabled via AM will be provided. In addition to research and education, the Keck Center, through UTEP’s outstanding students, is driving a new economy in the El Paso region enabled through AM with its most recent success being recognized as one of 21 regions (out of 529 initial applications) awarded the Economic Development Administration’s American Rescue Plan’s Build Back Better Regional Challenge.
Bio
Ryan Wicker, Ph.D., P.E., is the endowed Mr. and Mrs. MacIntosh Murchison Chair I professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), director and founder of the UTEP W.M. Keck Center for 3D Innovation (Keck Center) and America Makes Satellite Center, and Editor-in-Chief and founding editor of Additive Manufacturing, an Elsevier journal. Ryan received degrees in mechanical engineering from The University of Texas at Austin (B.S., 1987) and Stanford University (M.S., 1991, and Ph.D., 1995), worked at General Dynamics Fort Worth Division (1987-1989), and has spent his entire academic career at UTEP (1994-present) in his hometown of El Paso. Ryan has co-founded three university spin-out companies, holds 29 U.S. patents and nine foreign patents, published hundreds of peer-reviewed articles, and has employed more than 500 student researchers in UTEP’s Keck Center with many of them becoming leaders in the additive manufacturing industry.