Developments in Advanced Manufacturing Techniques: Impact Welding and Metamorphic Manufacturing.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The work in this dissertation is focused on the development of new manufacturing technologies at the early stage. Two concepts are developed in the category of Impact Welding and two in the category of Metamorphic Manufacturing. Under the Impact Welding category two different welding processes are studied, the Vaporizing Foil Actuator Welding and the Augmented Laser Impact Welding processes. Both of these processes were demonstrated to produce impact welds between traditionally unweldable aircraft aluminum alloys which performed as well or better than comparable riveted joints without the need for the drilling of holes or removal of surface coatings. Additionally, basic engineering guidelines are established for the design of foils for the Vaporizing Foil Actuator Welding process and basic performance metrics are established for the Augmented Laser Impact Welding technique. Two new data analysis techniques were developed for the Augmented Laser Impact Welding process which were validated by the use of high-speed videography. Models of the impact conditions for both of these impact welding techniques were established. For the Augmented Laser Impact Welding process, a technique for accurately measuring the welding velocity during an impact event is developed and validated.Metamorphic Manufacturing refers to the agile use of deformation to create shapes and modify microstructure. In this area two concepts were developed where metallic components are transformed from one shape into a second more desirable and useful form. A device and process for bending medical fixation plates to match patient skeletal anatomy is developed. The method can make arbitrary controlled shapes and may save time in the operating room for reconstruction surgeries. The second concept is an approach for Robotic Blacksmithing, a process for incrementally transforming a malleable material into useful shapes by deformation. This concept was initially developed on a purpose-built desktop robotic system. Once successfully demonstrated at small scale, Robotic Blacksmithing was then used to produce an aluminum part which closely resembled the target geometry, albeit with some limitations. This Robotic Blacksmithing process may complement CNC machining and 3D printing as a common manufacturing technique.