This action funds Southern Methodist University to become a research site of the multi-university Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Lasers and Plasmas for Advanced Manufacturing. The research agenda of this site will broaden the research agenda by studies in Laser Micro-machining, Laser Welding, Laser Surface Modification, Laser Crystallization of Silicon on Glass, Plasma Surface Modification and Nanostructures and Laser Applications.
was established at the Old Dominion University. In 2005, Southern Methodist University (SMU) joined this multi-institutional I/UCRC. The First Phase (a five-year period) for SMU's site expired in 2010 and this is a Project Outcomes Report for the First Phase of SMU's site. SMU's site industrial partners include: the Army Research Laboratory, General Motors Technical Center, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, Halliburton Co., trinity Industries, Inc., Lee Laser, and Fruth innovative Technologies (Germany). SMU's site was also financially supported through grants obtained from the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Army Research Office, Spectra Physics, and Siemens-UGS PLM Software. To date, SMU's site graduated seven Ph.D. students with an additional three Ph.D. students currently in the final stage of completing their graduate studies. The site’s research results have been presented to the international research community through 20 published journal papers and a number of presentations at national and international conferences. Additionally, three undergraduate students worked in the center through the NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates Program. SMU's I/UCRC site, in collaboration with its industrial partners, has conducted a number of research projects and a short summary of the outcomes of these projects are shown below. Halliburton Company financially supported a project entitled: "Creating and testing of functionally graded materials (FGM) resistant to slurry erosion by laser cladding." The long-term goal of this research is to create a commercially valuable method for producing products consisting of FGMs resistant to slurry erosion. FGMs consisting of Ni-WC (nickel-tungsten carbides) powders with different concentration of tungsten carbide particles are successfully deposited by a laser-based direct metal deposition (LBDMD) process on AISI4140 steel substrate. An extensive numerical simulation of heat transfer and evolution of residual stresses with experimental verification has been successfully performed. General Motors financially supported a project entitled: "Laser welding of advanced lightweight materials." The main goal of this project is to develop welding procedure for welding galvanized high strength steels in a lap joint configuration through the use of high-power fiber lasers. A hybrid welding process based on a high-power fiber laser combined with the traditional arc welding process (gas tungsten arc welding) has been developed to successfully mitigate the effect of zinc vapor on the quality of welding sheets made of high-strength dual phase steel for the automotive industry in a lap joint configuration. In order to optimize the hybrid welding process, the process parameters related to the laser beam, the electric arc, and the interaction between the laser and arc have been investigated. In this study, an experimentally based finite element model was developed to simulate temperature distribution for purposes of calculating mechanical stresses in welded structures. A strong correlation was found between the depth of weld and the airborne sound signature developed during the laser welding of high-strength steels in lap joint configuration. Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control financially supported a project entitled: "Development of arc plasma-based process for building/repair high-value components made of Al-alloys." The main goal of this project is to develop an economically justifiable rapid manufacturing/repair technique based on a variable polarity arc plasma. A system to repair high-value Al-alloy components by using the variable polarity gas tungsten arc welding process has been developed. A real-time machine vision system has been integrated to monitor the size of the molten pool and the cathodic cleaning of Al-oxides. The Army Research Laboratory financially supported a project entitled: "Digital engineering of bio-adaptable dental implants." The project involves the design and production of bio-adaptable dental implants through the use of electron beam melting processes. A one-component customized dental implant designed to mimic the shape and function of a natural tooth has been proposed. Currently used dental implants are a screw-like assembly that consists of a threaded titanium alloy post, an abutment that holds the crown and an assembly screw that holds the abutment to the post. The implant is anchored to the predrilled jaw-bone. A one-component dental implant will be implanted immediately after the extraction of the decayed tooth, eliminating the lengthy recovery and drastically cutting the cost. The tooth that has to be extracted is scanned by a CT scanner and the scanned data is used to build a replica of the tooth. The 3D data of the tooth replica is then used to "print" the titanium alloy dental implant using the electron beam melting process in a vacuum environment. A functionally graded porosity is applied at the root of the tooth in order to optimize the local mechanical behavior between the implant material and surrounding bone which will minimize the stress shielding effect, leading to longer implant life and faster healing time. This is an excellent example of using digital design and additive manufacturing principles to personalize bio-medical implants.
