River Sepinuck has found a way to combine his long-time interest in 3D printing with his future career ambitions in industrial robotics. The mechanical engineering junior indulges both as a member of Sneha Prabha Narra’s research team.
Narra is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. A key area of her work is wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM), which is a 3D printing process that uses a robotic arm to move a welding torch that melts metal wire feedstock with an electric arc heating source. WAAM is capable of producing metal parts that are significantly larger than those produced using powder-based additive manufacturing methods.
Sepinuck used the Highway to Undergraduate Research in the Academic Year (HURAY) program to find his way onto Narra’s team, where he worked under the direction of Gala Solis, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering. Solis studies WAAM process monitoring using thermal imaging with commercial-grade cameras and a ratiometric method to measure accurate real-time temperatures while eliminating the dependence on emissivity. Monitoring these temperatures is critical for process control, ensuring the quality, consistency, and integrity of the metal parts being built.
