To watch these seminars click the presentations below:-

A revolution is occurring in the manner that parts are made. It started with techniques and machines providing a means to rapidly build prototypes of hardware in various polymers for marketing, etc. However, new techniques have quickly progressed in the manufacturing of parts used in aerospace flight vehicles, such as rocket engines. These are no longer toys or desktop displays that are being made. Almost every week, it is reported that additional parts critical to flight are now being manufactured by techniques labeled 3D printing or additive manufacturing (AM). Furthermore, the materials used in these techniques are quickly expanding. The geometries are becoming more complex and the addition of fibers and powders into the matrix are being attempted. In this seminar, an overview of additive manufacturing techniques, such as selective laser sintering (SLS), fused deposition modeling (FDM), and HP Multi Jet Fusion 3D printer (MJF) will be presented. The similarities and differences of these three AM techniques are compared. R&D of different polymer nanocomposites that can be used by these three AM techniques are undergoing study at UT & KAI. Material properties of these AM polymers are characterized.

 

The Koo Research Group (KRG) at UT Austin has been specializing in “Ablation research” for the past twelve years. Recently, the group has developed some very unique capabilities that could advance “Ablation research” using both experimental and numerical approach. The purpose of today’s seminar at RMIT University to introduce to our RMIT colleagues the methodology KRG has developed to solve this challenging problem. Past and current sponsors relating to our “Ablation research” include DoD (AFOSR, AFRL, AMDEC, DTRA, MDA, NAVAIR, NAVSEA, & ONR), DoE, NASA, and private companies.
Today’s seminar includes the following topics:

  • Nanostructured ablative material processing, characterization, and performance
  • Oxy-acetylene test bed (OTB) and Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) with advanced diagnostics for ablative test & evaluation
  • In situ ablation recession and thermal sensing technology
  • Sensors to characterize nanostructured ablative char strength
  • Thermophysical properties characterization of ablative
  • Material response, heat transfer, and CFD modeling using industry-standard computer codes

The introduction of inorganic nanomaterials as additives into polymers has resulted in polymer nanocomposites exhibiting a multiplicity of high-performance characteristics beyond what traditional polymeric composites possess. These “multifunctional” features attributable to polymer nanocomposites consist of improved properties, such as thermal, flame, ablation, electrical, moisture, chemical, permeability, and others. Through control/alteration of the additive at the nanoscale level, one is able to maximize property enhancement of selected polymer systems to meet or exceed the requirements of current commercial, military, and aerospace applications. This seminar includes: an overview of different nanomaterials, processing techniques, and selective examples to examine the behavior of polymer nanocomposites for applications, such as re-entry vehicles, rocket engines, additive manufacturing, and fire protection.