Advances in Additive Manufacturing of Materials: Current status and emerging opportunities

ABOUT THE COURSE:Additive manufacturing, defined as layer-by-layer deposition of materials as per design of an object, has been playing significant roles across a spectrum of important applications sectors, from aerospace, transportation, energy to healthcare. A number of variations of AM processes are commercially exploited for these applications around the globe. Against this backdrop and built on the course instructor’s decade-long research experience as well as existing NPTEL course on fundamentals of AM processes, this course will first introduce the important AM processes of larger societal relevance as well as fundamentals of Engineering Materials. This will be followed by basic concepts of materials science with an emphasis to the structure and properties of metals, ceramics and polymers, for students from different academic disciplines. This course will then focus on three classes of AM processes, including binderjet 3D printing, laser-based powder bed fusion/directed energy deposition and extrusion printing of soft materials. While describing the process science, much emphasis will be placed on quantitative spatio-temporal kinetics of binders (ink)-material interactions, using a number of theoretical models and contemporary experimental measurements, in case of binderjet/extrusion 3D printing. In case of laser-based 3D metal printing, the intrinsic heat transfer at weld pool and rapid solidification induced microstructure development will be discussed. While describing the application of 3D printing, much focus will be given to discuss the applications in pre-surgical clinical planning or functional tissue constructs for regenerative engineering. Towards the end of the course, the opportunity of Artificial intelligence/machine learning in predicting AM process parameters or the quality AM process parameters or the quality of AM parts will be described. The challenges related to 3D printing under microgravity conditions (space bioprinting) will also be discussed.INTENDED AUDIENCE: Postgraduate students in the disciplines of Materials Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Biotechnology,Biomedical Engineering, BioEngineeringINDUSTRY SUPPORT: Biorad Medisys, Pune and Avay Biosciences, Bangalore, and Orthotech India Pvt. Ltd., Valsad, Gujarat, Amace Systems Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore