Assessment of International Research and Development in Hybrid Additive/Subtractive Manufacturing and Integrative Product Synthesis

Purpose

The goal of this study is to gather information and disseminate it to government decision makers and the research community on the worldwide status and trends in hybrid manufacturing R&D.  The study panelists will gather information on R&D abroad useful to the U.S. government in planning its own R&D programs, and will critically analyze and compare the research in the United States with that being pursued in abroad.  This information will serve the following purposes:

• Identify good ideas overseas worth exploring in U.S. R&D programs
• Clarify research opportunities and needs for promoting progress in the field generally
• Identify opportunities for international collaboration
• Evaluate the relative position of foreign research programs relative to those in the U.S.

Scope

The solid freeform fabrication (SFF) community has learned that 2-D design decomposition allows layered deposition of structures with increasing geometric complexity.  However, restriction to layered SFF techniques may be constraining regarding part quality and material variety.  Clearly, additive material processes are broader than just layered processes, but even they do not include material subtraction, assembly, and insertion of components made by other processes. Therefore this study will focus on the broader topic of integrative approaches to “material synthesis.”

Subtopics likely to be covered in this WTEC study include the following:

• Integrated manufacturing approaches utilizing MEMS, SFF and a variety of other processes to realize products in the mesoscale regime
• Applications for the above manufacturing approaches in medical devices and tissue-related products
• Technical and management approaches to custom manufacturing
• Focus on synthesis of products rather than synthesis of models
• Opportunities for optimizing materials and energy use in manufacturing from hybrid manufacturing processes

This study may also address the following non-technical issues:

• Mechanisms for enhancing international and interdisciplinary cooperation in the field
• Opportunities for shortening the lead time for deployment of new manufacturing technologies emerging from the laboratory
• Long range research, educational, and infrastructure issues that need addressed to promote better progress in the field
• Current government R&D funding levels overseas compared to the United States, to the extent data are available

Panelists

Fritz B. Prinz (Chair)	Materials Science and Engineering Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305 fbp@rpl.stanford.edu
Kyle Hamerick	Materials Science and Engineering Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305 kidonge@stanford.edu