Forward of this 12 months’s Additive Manufacturing Customers Group Convention, keynote speaker Ryan Watkins, Analysis Engineer at NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), talks to TCT about creating 3D printed crushable buildings for high-speed influence, balancing innovation with reliability, and the worth of integrating AM into on a regular basis engineering challenges to higher we perceive its strengths and limitations.
TCT: To start out, are you able to give us a broad sense of the influence or contribution 3D printing is making inside NASA JPL at this time?
RW: 3D printing has been part of NASA JPL’s toolkit for over 20 years, however its function has grown considerably lately. Whereas the primary identified use of 3D printing on a JPL mission dates again to 1999, it wasn’t till round 2009 that we started making bigger investments within the expertise. Early analysis targeted on Directed Vitality Deposition (DED), notably its potential for printing gradient alloy methods. By 2015, curiosity had expanded, with plastic desktop 3D printers turning into prevalent on lab and the institution of the Additive Manufacturing Middle, which formally opened in 2018. Round that point, we additionally started creating our first metallic 3D printed components for house missions, equivalent to these used on the Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars in 2021. Since then, 3D printing has continued to make its manner into JPL spacecraft, although adoption has been gradual. With that being mentioned, it actually seems like we’re at a turning level and I anticipate the following wave of JPL spacecraft shall be extensively construct with AM {hardware}.
I also needs to be aware that almost all of my responses are with respect to metallic 3D printing, as that’s my major focus inside AM. Nonetheless, now we have in depth plastic 3D printing capabilities, starting from consumer-grade printers utilized by engineers to do s mall scale prototyping, to commercial-grade printers in our AdditiveManufacturing Middle.
TCT: You just lately spoke on the AMUG Convention about ‘linking design with additive manufacturing’ within the context of 3D printed crushable buildings for high-pace influence attenuation purposes. Why crushable buildings and why 3D printing?
RW: Crushable buildings are nice vitality absorbing units. They’re truly throughout us — packing foam, in protecting gear like helmets, and the crumple zone within the entrance of your automotive — we simply typically don’t take into consideration them that manner. Lattice buildings are a subset of crushable vitality absorbers that exhibit best vitality absorption traits on account of their structural sparsity and periodicity. They’re additionally extensively utilized in house purposes to mitigate shock occasions throughout spacecraft deployments, planetary touchdown occasions, and launch car separations. 3D printing crushables is especially fascinating as a result of it vastly opens the engineering design house. Utilizing typical manufacturing strategies, crushable lattice design has been restricted to foams and honeycombs. With 3D printing, we are able to now print a wider vary of lattice geometry, permitting us to additional optimize vitality attenuating properties.
Moreover, we are able to now conformally print them into complicated type components, spatially fluctuate their properties, and make them out of a better vary of supplies. At JPL, we’re exploring the usage of 3D printed titanium lattice buildings as vitality attenuators for pattern return missions. The ultimate stage of those missions typically entails a tough touchdown on Earth, so defending the samples throughout influence is a crucial problem. The distinctive capabilities of 3D printed lattices make them a perfect resolution for dissipating touchdown masses. I’ve been main this analysis since 2020, serving because the principal investigator throughout the early expertise growth part and because the major subject material professional working to qualify these buildings for future flight missions.
TCT: You’ve been at NASA JPL for virtually a decade. How has the adoption of AM modified in that point? I ponder, has it adopted an identical trajectory to different industries the place the expertise has transitioned from a novel (dare I say it, ‘sci-fi’) expertise to only one other software?
RW: I feel JPL has skilled an identical trajectory of adoption to a lot of the trade. In my early days at JPL, AM was thought-about an novelty with out a lot sensible use. Within the instances the place individuals noticed its worth, it was nonetheless closely scrutinized and sometimes blocked from use as a consequence of perceived reliability considerations. In the present day, its feels just like the winds are shifting. JPL has two printers which were absolutely certified per NASA AM qualification normal NASA-STD-6030. We’ve had AM fly on a number of flagship missions. And folks are actually beginning to search out the usage of AM moderately than us seeking out customers. I’m hopeful that the usage of AM on our future missions will look a lot totally different than it has prior to now.
TCT: Given how prolific NASA JPL’s missions are, having flown to each planet, I like this concept that 3D printing might journey our whole photo voltaic system. However so as to add a dose of actuality, what are the constraints to the expertise at this time when it comes to NASA JPL’s work? Are there any particular challenges you’ve come up in opposition to?
RW: We’re initially of what seems like a progress interval for AM, however the expertise remains to be evolving and has limitations. In the present day, we are able to construct sensible, mission-ready {hardware} with AM, however scalability stays a serious hurdle. Lots of the components we need to manufacture merely don’t match throughout the mature AM infrastructure, notably the construct volumes of most Laser Powder Mattress Fusion (LPBF) machines. In consequence, even when AM is the perfect resolution for a given software, restricted machine availability and dimension constraints typically stop its use. One other important problem is the general course of circulate. Whereas the precise 3D printing step is comparatively quick, post-processing necessities prolong lead instances significantly. At JPL, printed metallic components typically require Sizzling Isostatic Urgent (HIP) for fatigue efficiency, wire chopping to take away them from the construct plate, warmth therapy for hardened supplies, floor ending to enhance fatigue behaviour, and remaining machining for precision options. Every of those steps provides time and price. With out developments that scale back post-processing whereas sustaining materials efficiency, widespread adoption of AM will proceed to be constrained by manufacturing effectivity and affordability. Overcoming these limitations shall be key to unlocking the total potential of 3D printing for future house missions.
TCT: I feel it is simple to overlook that a whole lot of the work being completed by NASA isn’t simply about house, the learnings are extremely relevant to the challenges we face right here on earth. With that in thoughts, what sort of learnings have you ever present in AM that you just consider are relevant to anybody utilizing AM at this time?
RW: With any new expertise, there’s a pure tendency to deal with the massive, game-changing purposes—the house runs. AM has largely adopted this sample, with a lot of the early pleasure centered round groundbreaking improvements that have been by no means attainable earlier than (equivalent to built-in fluid channels, lattice buildings, and topology optimization). These formidable purposes are important for pushing the boundaries of expertise, but when we solely pursue probably the most novel and high-risk makes use of, we restrict broader trade adoption. The truth is that many organizations wrestle with absolutely integrating AM as a result of these high-profile initiatives can appear daunting, each when it comes to threat and complexity.
At JPL, we’ve just lately shifted our mindset to acknowledge that adoption requires expertise, and expertise solely comes from truly utilizing the expertise — even for extra routine purposes. The extra we combine AM into on a regular basis engineering challenges, the higher we perceive its strengths and limitations, making it simpler to tackle these high-risk, high-reward initiatives sooner or later. This lesson applies throughout industries: moderately than ready for the proper, groundbreaking use case, corporations ought to begin incorporating
AM in sensible methods at this time. Over time, this hands-on expertise builds the boldness and experience wanted to totally leverage AM’s potential.
TCT: You lately made the choice to open-source your UnitcellHub software program. Are you able to discuss why that was essential and the way you hope it is going to be adopted?
RW: Sure, I open-sourced my lattice design suite, UnitcellHub, in October 2024. After I first began engaged on AM lattices, I rapidly realized that engineers had only a few instruments obtainable to design these buildings for particular purposes. I initially developed UnitcellHub out of necessity whereas engaged on lattice buildings for the Mars Pattern Return mission. As I continued refining the software, it grew to become clear that the broader adoption of lattice buildings was being held again by the complexity of their design and simulation. In the meantime, I had constructed a software that was fixing these challenges — however solely I used to be utilizing it. Open-sourcing UnitcellHub was a method to share this functionality and assist speed up lattice adoption in engineering fields past JPL.
One other main motivation was the chance to offer again to the open-source neighborhood. A lot of the software program I develop builds on an intensive ecosystem of open-source instruments, and UnitcellHub itself closely will depend on open-source frameworks. It wouldn’t have been attainable with out the muse laid by others in the neighborhood. By making UnitcellHub freely obtainable, I hope to contribute to that ecosystem, enabling extra engineers and researchers to discover the potential of lattice buildings for vitality absorption, lightweighting, and past.
TCT: Are you able to share with us what you’re engaged on now, and the place you see additional alternatives for AM?
RW: Proper now, I’m notably targeted on the scalability of additive manufacturing and the way the corresponding design ecosystem is evolving. The potential to fabricate massive, high-resolution components with fewer parts might utterly rework engineering. Nonetheless, as I highlighted earlier with lattice buildings, designing and modeling fine-featured buildings on a big scale stays a big problem. The complexity of sustaining excessive precision over macroscopic dimensions is without doubt one of the key obstacles we should overcome.
