AMPEL: Structure and Division
This article will break down the business and research units within the Additive Manufacturing Prototyping and Experimentation Laboratory (AMPEL) and discuss their goals. It will also seek to explain more in depth the vision and purpose behind the organizational in general.
To begin the discussion, it must first be stated the purpose behind AMPEL. Though the field is obviously based around manufacturing, the overarching purpose is not in scaling to thousands of units in production/sales. In recognizing the relative new-ness of additive technology and acknowledging the frontier of development, the purpose of AMPEL is first and foremost to experiment with the cutting edge of additive technology, document its application through prototyping, and, where either necessary or possible, create and perfect new methods of manufacture. Building a library of useful and verified data is the idea.
TL;DR… the organization exists to help the industry and technology evolve rather than to vastly scale production by producing data. Certainly we plan to work alongside and advise others who are committed to the manufacture by leveraging this data.
Business Units
In the spirit of improving the technology and pushing the boundaries of the additive manufacturing frontier, a few areas first become obvious. Materials, Methods,
Materials Engineering
Though discussed more deeply in the previous article, it is safe to say that an area of wide opportunity is in the investigation of combinations of different materials for use in additive manufacturing. Skilled chemists and materials scientists can apply their skills in building a database of various thermoplastics, stereolithographic materials, metals, organic materials, and mixtures thereof. This library will be valuable to in-house operations and client manufacturers.
Methods and Machinery
Also discussed previously, this business unit serves to push the boundaries of how additive technology is used. Engineers in this operation should have experience and expertise in the “Big Three” methods: FDM, SLA, and SLS. Thi unit’s goal will be to optimize machinery to meet consumer, commercial, and industrial needs. Emphasis on building smaller and faster will be a priority, though development in BAAM (big area additive manufacturing) should be documented as well.
This unit should operate closely with the materials engineering unit, as the two go hand-in-hand. Testing and documenting how unique materials can be used with unique machinery will be commonplace.
Internet of Things
As stated in the AMPEL Vision, designing and manufacturing products which are connected to/compatible with the Internet of Things is seen as terribly important and a valuable capability. A team of network and electrical engineers will tasked with this incorporation. Ideally, both products and machinery will be connected, but at a minimum they will assist clients with design and manufacture of interconnected product lines.
Post-processing
Across the range of additive manufacturing methods, when a model is finished being printed it still requires a certain amount of post-processing by human hands. This means that the technology is remarkably inefficient at scale. This business unit will be tasked with designing and implementing, for both clients and in-house operations, automated methods of post-processing to prepare the finished model and to “clean” the printer to prepare for the next print. Running multiple prints back-to-back without human intervention could be considered a milestone of success.
Design Optimization
Though many design softwares are quite automated already, building a system to optimize models for additive manufacture is a frontier yet relatively unexplored. This team of software engineers and product designers will create a program which analyzes potential points of stress on load-bearing parts of the model to be printed, take into account the strength of material being used, and optimize the model’s geometry for additive manufacture. (Current design programs are non-specific to additive, injection molding, milling, etc). Since a “layer-by-layer” approach which is taken by additive manufacturing produces areas on the model which are more susceptible to stress than, say, injection molding, this approach should be accounted for.
It should be acknowledged that this business unit has potentially the most difficult task. Building this design platform is a step which needs to take into account many unknowns, unknowns which will be discovered by other business units (ie Materials and/or Methods). A deep understanding of the technology being used is of critical importance.
Design optimization should invest heavily into building a design mentality throughout the people involved, specifically a mentality for additive design. Creating designs with an understanding of the machines and methods used to manufacture (layer-by-layer versus other machining methods) is critical to proper design for reliable manufacture.
PCB’s
PCB’s, or printed circuit boards, should be a specialty. By incorporating conductive filament or by using metal printing (SLS) we can manufacture complex circuitry directly into the product. The capabilities desired by PCB research can be separated into two general areas: stand-alone PCB’s and built-in PCB’s. An overarching theme of this capability will be mixed materials, as the additive machinery should be able to include resistors, capacitors, and other unique elements of circuitry.
Stand-alone PCB’s can be generalized as circuit boards for resale or made custom to meet client specifications. Either way, these PCB’s will likely require dual-extrusion printing as the conductive elements need to be nested within a protective housing.
Built-in PCB’s will be circuit boards which exist as a sub-set of a larger model which requires circuitry to function. These will mostly likely need to incorporated using dual-extrusion as well. This system should be able to function within significantly larger projects.
The People
AMPEL is an organization structured around the idea that additive manufacturing is a young technology which has many unrealized benefits. Perhaps the most important aspect of the organization will be the people who comprise the teams: they should be driven, intellectually curious, problem-solvers with a passion for creation and building the future. They will be empowered to pursue “spin-off” organizations as a part of their respective business units (ex: motivated machinery employees will be supported in building/licensing new machinery). This encourages the creation of another non-operational business unit within AMPEL…
Business Development
This business unit will specialize in assisting the motivated employees with building a company of their own. Biz dev employees will be responsible for legal and administrative support of these new companies (ex: establishing legal status, tax ID, general finance and accounting). This support is specifically intended to keep the producers focused on their “mission” of developing and perfecting new technology or testing and documenting materials/methods. These entities will receive support from AMPEL in the form of financing and oversight.
Finally, in keeping with the addendum to the AMPEL vision, we will prioritize individuals with a passion for space development. Because space, the final frontier, is the optimal environment for additive manufacturing with it’s glorious zero-gravity environment, this motivation is prized.
Conclusion
The structure of the organization is based around data. This data is the fuel of the next industrial revolution and, among the various organizations which are already pushing the boundaries of the technology, this data needs to be verified and accurate. Current information is scattered and often faulty. An investment into gathering, verifying, and organizing this data for use by manufacturers is dependent upon the people who are conducting and recording the research. I’m excited to see how this technology evolves and improves, and I’m even more excited to be a part of the driving force pushing it to do so.
