Grant: Alliance Grants

The overlying objective of the proposal is to "Develop a fully integrated, experimentally validated, sensor fusion enabled additive-subtractive digital toolchain that integrates design for additive manufacturing (AM) strategies while incorporating material characteristics processed through wire arc AM process and its manufacturing constraints." Through this proposal, an alliance will be developed between the applicants at the university and Syncrude Canada Ltd to investigate and advance the application of AM technologies for improving Syncrude's operations in the oil sands industry in Alberta by improving the process, equipment, and/or component reliability. This project partnership will advance research and development in the following areas:1- Development of a platform-agnostic digital toolchain for multi-axis support free advanced directed energy deposition systems for oil and gas with a focus on pulse-based cold metal transfer wire arc robotic AM technology2- Understanding of solidification-microstructure-geometry interaction for robotic wire arc AM (RWAAM) of material systems specific to the needs of the mining and energy industry, including carbon and low alloy steels, and stainless steels, Stellite's, and WC-Ni MMC's. 3- Develop and implement a design for AM strategy for redesign, assembly consolidation, and printing of large-scale parts using RWAAM manufactured lattice structure-based composites.4- Using sensor fusion for in-situ and inline geometric and material deposition quality assessment with integrated intralayer an interlayer hybrid manufacturing strategy.