Tin and Wessman's Project 3D Printing for Hypersonics Featured in Daily Star

MSE department head, Patrick R. Taylor Endowed Department Leadership Chair and professor Sammy Tin and MSE assistant professor Andrew Wessman have secured a $1.2 million grant from the Office of Naval Research's Defense University Research Instrumentation Program to 3D print objects to withstand hypersonic speeds. In a recent article with the Arizona Daily Star, the researchers explained how 3D printing, or “additive manufacturing,” offers more flexibility and precision than traditional manufacturing of mechanical parts. 

“In forging, for example, you take a chunk of metal, you heat it up and you squish it into the shape you want,” he said. “If you try to take that same material, you can make it into a powder and then print with it. And it prints OK, but it’s not really optimal.”

Instead, additive manufacturing often works with specially made alloys. The pair, who together hold over a dozen patents in alloy development, will create novel metallic alloys optimized to be used in the additive manufacturing process and to withstand the extreme conditions of hypersonic flight, particularly at high temperatures and stress levels.

“Combining all these pieces will give us a unique capability in terms of the infrastructure for advanced manufacturing,” Tin said.