I am Professor Glenn Daehn of The Ohio State University. My group works
on manufacturing process innovation. We often harness energetic
discharges from capacitor banks to cause metal to be formed, joined, cut
or modified, enabling new products.
Abstract
Hello, I am Glenn Daehn, a professor of materials science and
engineering at The Ohio State University. I find great joy and concern
in manufacturing process innovation. On the joy side, my group is
working in the unusual area of impulse manufacturing. This is using
short-duration, high-amplitude pressure pulses that we use to make
things. Usually we shape, cut or weld materials using very high
pressures or speeds. Capacitor bank discharge is typically where the
energy is stored, and this is then it is turned to mechanical work in
one of a number of ways such as by a Lorentz magnetic repulsion from a
coil, or by developing a very large pressure pulse by vaporizing a
shaped thin metal foil. Examples of what we do are available at my
group’s website at http://iml.osu.edu. Recently, we have had great
interest in using this as a method for the solid-state welding of
metals. To allow us to get into a deep and geeky conversation on this,
I’ve prepared a fairly rapid-pace 35 minute lecture on this that you can
find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H3M8yLKNjY&spfreload=10 We
are very interested in developing these impulse manufacturing techniques
as go-to methods for manufacturing. Two things lack. First is a good
design-science foundation for this work. We (and other researchers –
see: http://i2fg.org) are developing that now, and we have invested in
some great instrumentation. Second, we need to disseminate these ideas
and get some early adopters into this space. I am grateful to reddit for
helping sine some light on this technical area. At the risk of diluting
the technical conversation, we may also discuss the overall climate for
process innovation in America. The US does a breathtakingly good job of
top-rate academic research. But in my opinion, we only do a marginal job
of process innovation when it comes to new physical systems in areas
like metal processing and manufacturing, which are vital to our economy,
sustainability and security. I’d be happy to discuss if the US is making
the right investments and training people with the right skills to
innovate in capital-intensive industries. I think the maker movement and
projects like the National Network of Manufacturing Innovation
institutes represent great steps in the right direction, but wonder if
they are sufficient when we look around our competitive world. Proof:
http://imgur.com/w1h8D5f I will be back at 1 pm ET (10 PT, 6 pm UTC) to
answer your questions, ask me anything! Hey – gotta take off for now.
Will try to check back later. Thanks all for the awesome questions and
response and thought provoking questions. Its clear a lot of people
would like to try these methods themselves! I’ll see what we can do
there. I’ll try to do one more pass at the board tomorrow (Tue).