This award will fund a United States delegation of about 20 experts to attend a workshop in Seoul, Republic of Korea (ROK), to discuss advanced manufacturing with a similar number of researchers from the ROK. The workshop will be held in March, 2013, and the ROK delegation will be hosted by the Korean National Research Foundation. The goal of the workshop is to identify research topics of mutual interest to academic researchers supported by National Science Foundation domestically, and by the Korean National Research Foundation in Korea. The workshop discussions will focus in four topical areas: industrial robotics, manufacturing mathematics, materials processing and sub-micron and nano-manufacturing. The workshop will be preceeded by two days of tours of important Korean manufacturing research facilities to give the United Stated delegation a better understanding of the areas of expertise and research facilities available in Korea. The workshop itself will also be two days in duration. The result of the workshop will be a report detailing areas for beneficial collaboration between Korea and the United States with the expectation that it will be followed up with proposals for research in these areas.
This workshop will promote international collaboration in academic research, particularly in the four topic areas of the workshop. By so doing, it will accelerate research in these areas. Further, it will help students gain an international perspective and broaden their educational experience.
The goal of this workshop was to identify the areas of mutual interest for the conduct of collaborative research between academic researchers in the United States and Republic of Korea (ROK) in the area of advanced manufacturing for developing high quality but economical engineering and consumer products. The main emphasis was in identifying the scientific principles/concepts/developments and emerging enabling technologies and discussing the strategies of integration of these scientific innovations and enabling technologies to address the problems/challenges in four major areas of advanced manufacturing namely industrial robotics, manufacturing mathematics, materials processing (with a focus on graphene), and micro and nano manufacturing. This NSF funded workshop was organized in collaboration with the National Research Foundation (NRF), ROK and was held in Pohang, ROK on May 13-16, 2013. A team of 19 persons from US (including 14 academic experts, 1 organizing chair, 2 US NSF Program Directors, and 2 graduate students as observers) participated in this workshop and pre-workshop visits to ROK industries and academic institutions. Similarly a team of 20 persons from South Korea (including 17 academic experts, 1 organizing chair and 3 NRF Program Directors, all funded by the NRF) participated in this workshop. Intellectual Merit: Workshop participants discussed science and engineering funadmentals and their integartion required for advancing above mentioned four major areas. For example, Specific topics of kinematics and dynamics of industrial robots, vision, force control methods and applications, and human-robot cooperation/interface were addressed. Applications of mathematical and statistical innovations to simulation and modeling of manufacturing processes, treatment of uncertainty in manufacturing processes, optimization of machine operations such as tool path optimization, assembly line layout, outsourcing and supply chain management, and other related topics were discussed. Topics related to the processing of materials for energy saving and weight reduction, forming technology, numerical approaches for complex deformation behavior, thin slab casting, or twin roll casting of Mg sheet and powder metallurgy (PM) process for the tailored nano powder and manufacturing of graphene, as a new material, focused on the application to energy devices were addressed. Simulations, novel processes and advanced evaluation techniques for manufacturing and assembly of sub-micron and nano-scale devices and systems were discussed. Broader Impact: The joint research projects in advanced manufacturing are expected to lead to high qaulity, economical and useful egineering and consumer products. The exchange of research ideas and related discussions estabilsh a strong foundation for professional development of researchers/educators, students and engieering professionals.
