YSU Students Put Siemens’ Software Gift to Good Use
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- James Menego, vice president at Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc., thought it a good idea to bring along a business associate when he paid a visit this month to Youngstown State University’s Center for Innovation in Additive Manufacturing.
Menego’s guest was Vern Heyer, president and CEO of VMH International based in Chesterfield, Mo. Each year, Heyer’s company assembles a “dream team” of student engineers charged with working on various projects with some of the world’s top companies.
Next year, one of those students could be from the YSU College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
“We want to make sure we’re finding opportunities for YSU students in our network of companies that we work with,” Menego says.
Nine months ago, Siemens announced a $440 million in-kind software grant designed to support STEM disciplines at YSU, especially additive manufacturing, or 3-D printing.
VMH works with Siemens’ software and those companies that typically make up the supply chain for giant original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, such as Boeing.
Every year, Heyer says, his company partners with some of the largest concerns in the world, such as Caterpillar, Pratt & Whitney and General Dynamics, to work on project ideas. Students from universities around the country are invited to submit resumes and apply to work on these projects, he says. Siemens donates the software for the entire program.
“We had almost 400 applications across the country this year,” Heyer says. “Next year, we’ll probably have over 500.”
The “dream team” is a very exclusive club – only 14 were selected for the program this year, 13 last year, he reports.
The work underway at YSU’s new additive manufacturing center, the university’s partnership with Siemens, and its relationship with America Makes: The National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute in Youngstown places YSU in a strong position to submit proposals for the program, says Martin Abraham, dean of YSU’s STEM college.
“This is what we’ve been doing with additive manufacturing,” Abraham says. “This is what we’re now able to bring to our students, and give them the opportunity to participate in what are world-class programs with cutting-edge research and development programs at Fortune 100 companies.”
Additive manufacturing is a process that builds a component or functional product from a virtual design that is programmed into a 3-D printer. The method involves creating a part layer-by-layer with a specific material, such as metals, plastics or rubber. An arm inside the printer glides back and forth, much like an office copier, and deposits this material in a programmed pattern, thereby building the component from scratch. The larger and more sophisticated the printer, the larger the part or product produced.
Much of the dream team’s work relies heavily on 3-D printing, Heyer says. Last year, for example, the team scanned an entire Ford Model T and then turned it into a 3-D model with modifications. “We gave the dream team this project and asked them, ‘If the car were around today, what would it look like?’ ”
The students pulled down the fenders, tested it in a virtual wind tunnel, installed a new electrical system, and redesigned the seats, Heyer says. “A student from Cal Tech did the styling, another student from Purdue put the electrical system in it, and another from Mizzou [The University of Missouri] put the engine in,” he says. All of the work was done on Siemens software, and a small- scale model of the vehicle was then printed.
“We unveiled it at the Dearborn Inn,” he relates, a landmark hotel in Dearborn, Mich. “These students came from different schools, and they came up with these really good ideas.”
Heyer is encouraging more students to take interest in the program. “Hopefully, we can get some applicants from Youngstown and next year have more members on it,” he says.
Siemens’ Menego says that the company’s PLM software can take a product from concept through manufacturing and eventually to retirement of that product. “It’s a broad suite of products,” he says. “You can take models made on our software, and use the translators and data to manufacture them on 3-D machines.”
Siemens derives several benefits from its association with YSU, Menego says. “We want to make sure people know Siemens is a good company that is doing our best to work with universities and schools across the United States,” he notes. “It’s common sense business.”
Announced in January, YSU’s Center for Innovation in Additive Manufacturing is already turning out small projects, but is also an active partner in larger initiatives in connection with America Makes, reports Brett Conner, director of advanced manufacturing workforce initiatives at YSU’s STEM college.
The lab in Moser Hall has two high-end 3-D printers and about 20 students use the center’s equipment, he says. Another 30 to 40 are using smaller printers in the classroom. Also, two smaller “desktop” 3-D printers are locked in a display case in Moser Hall’s lobby and accessible to the public.
“We’ve been going through the process of continued training and use of the equipment, printing out various parts and getting everything set up to begin research projects,” Conner says.
Meantime, students are working with desktop 3-D printers so they can learn the basics of additive manufacturing, Conner says. Students recently completed a Choose Ohio First scholarship project that involved 3-D printing. “Students were focusing on additive manufacturing and complexity and customization,” he says, while the university has helped other Choose Ohio recipients by printing components for their projects.
“It’s growing in terms of students getting hands-on usage of the equipment,” Conner relates. “We’re also growing in terms of inserting this capability and some of our Siemens software into the classrooms as well.”
YSU is also party to two major projects funded by America Makes, the pilot project for President Obama’s National Network for Manufacturing Innovation.
“We’re on two project teams with America Makes,” Conner reports. One, led by the University of Texas El Paso, involves aerospace engineering and the development of multi-material printing from a single device. YSU is using Siemens NX software to design a thermal management system for satellites that can be manufactured on these printers.
Another project in which YSU is active with, along with the Youngstown Business Incubator and funded by America Makes, is research to develop sand-core printing technology that would be used in the foundry industry, Conner relates. The idea is to use additive manufacturing to print sand molds directly, bypassing the need to build patterns.
Since it was launched in August 2012, America Makes has begun more than $42 million worth of research and development initiatives, reports America Makes’ director, Ed Morris. “That includes not only technology investments but things that need to be done for transferring that technology,” he elaborates, “things to be done with advanced manufacturing enterprise and supply-chain networking, and doing workforce and educational outreach.”
America Makes’ downtown Youngstown site, connected with the Youngstown Business Incubator, includes 3-D printing and software equipment. The site engages in research and development, training, workshops, mapping roads, planning and hosting “a continuous flow of visitors wanting to understand what additive manufacturing is,” Morris says. “We connect them with the technology that best fits their product lines or product portfolios. All those things take place in downtown Youngstown in a refurbished furniture warehouse.”
America Makes is working on advanced manufacturing applications for a wide cross-section of materials that include polymers, metals such as titanium powder, and stainless steels. “High temperature is probably one of the key focuses right now,” Morris says.
The research, however, isn’t conducted at the Youngstown site, he explains. Instead, the work is scattered across the country among America Makes’ industrial and academic partners. “It doesn’t make sense to pull hundreds of people together in just one site,” he explains. “Let’s leverage the brilliant talent across the United States.”
Morris says he’s pleased with the number of partners who have lent their support to America Makes. There are 95 members listed as partners – among them large universities, community colleges, nonprofits, major multinational companies, and small to medium-size businesses.
“It’s a really nice balanced portfolio of our membership,” he says.
America Makes is the first of what may become a large network of advanced manufacturing hubs across the country. Aside from Youngstown, other advanced manufacturing designations have been awarded to Chicago, Detroit and North Carolina State University. The Obama Administration has asked Congress for $1 billion to create a network of 15 such innovation hubs across the country.
On April 9, bipartisan legislation sponsored by U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Roy Blunt, R-Mo., that would continue the National Network of Manufacturing Innovation, released from the Senate Commerce Committee.
“Establishing a National Network of Manufacturing Innovation would create thousands of jobs and ensure the United States remains the global leader in advanced manufacturing,” Brown says.
As for additive manufacturing, Morris says the future holds enormous potential and the technology has steadily grown in stature. Initially, 3-D printing was used for prototyping and modeling, he relates. Then, the process was used to manufacture tooling, which enabled manufacturers to lower their costs. “Now, it’s coming into real-line products,” he reports.
General Electric, for example, is performing some final testing on fuel-control manifolds for its lightweight engines, pointing additive manufacturing in an entirely new direction.
“From there, your imagination goes wild at where it might ultimately end up,” Morris says. “I think we’ll find it becoming a very affordable, rapid-response product application that allows mass customization, which is kind of neat.”
This story was published in the MidApril edition of The Business Journal.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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