Manufacturing of metal products is essential to every major industry, and involves complex supply chains, consumes significant natural resources, and sometimes still uses ancient techniques. Conversely, additive manufacturing (AM) promises to, ultimately, digitize the shaping of components and enable distributed production.
John Hart, MIT
I will highlight a parallel trajectory of research, entrepreneurship, and education in AM: computational and experimental techniques for understanding the spreading of powder layers and the generation of porosity in laser powder bed fusion (LPBF); a new approach for compositionally graded AM combining inkjet printing and LPBF; industrialization of LPBF at VulcanForms; and digital learning approaches for workforce training at scale
John Hart is the Class of 1922 Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He also serves as Director of the Center for Additive and Digital Advanced Production Technologies and Director of the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity. John’s research focuses on additive manufacturing, materials processing, precision engineering, and computational design. He is a co-founder of VulcanForms and Desktop Metal, and is a Board Member of Carpenter Technology Corporation.