Zay Jeffries Night 2024
Monday, April 1st
Special Topic: Manufacturing Processes from First Principles
Speaker: Professor Glenn Daehn
Abstract
With the notable exception of additive manufacturing, there has been relatively little change in the way components for structural service are manufactured in the past decades. The large investment needed, and risks introduced with new manufacturing processes are key reasons for rates of innovation that are slower than most any other technical field. Here we will take a broad first principles and design-thinking approach and ask what kinds of manufacturing processes we would design for structural components if we were to start with a clean-sheet of paper and emphasize how we can create components with assured high-quality at very small lot sizes. Following this thought exercise leads to some conclusions. We find that:
• We should design component, select materials, and design manufacturing processes concurrently. This is a task well-suited to emerging machine learning methods.
• New digital tools can improve manufacturing agility and throughput, as well as component performance.
• The universe of possible manufacturing processes is very broad, much broader than is practiced.
• With some creativity, we can significantly expand the performance envelope for metallic structures.
Examples will leverage deformation processing, shock processing and solid-state joining, always with the goal to design the process to optimize structure, properties, and performance.
Biography
Glenn S. Daehn is the Mars G. Fontana Professor of Metallurgical Engineering at The Ohio State University where he has been a professor since 1988. He earned a Ph.D. from Stanford University and B.S. from Northwestern University in materials science and engineering.
Professor Daehn’s research, education and service efforts are all broadly related to the interwoven themes of Midwestern manufacturing revival, through technology development, education, and integration of the University mission. His research is focused on novel materials processing with a particular focus on plastic deformation and impulse-based processes. He has been active in the professional development of K-12 teachers through the ASM Materials Education Foundation and its Materials Camps programs. Daehn has also been instrumental in founding several technical outreach organizations including the Ohio Manufacturing Institute, the LIFT Manufacturing USA Institute, Ohio State’s Center for Design and Manufacturing Excellence, International Impulse Forming Group, and NSF's Hybrid Autonomous Manufacturing, Moving from Evolution to Revolution (HAMMER).