Sougata Roy
Iowa State University, IA·Materials Science·Early-career
Metal 3D printing can build large parts and repair damaged ones, but only a small share of alloys print reliably. A major reason is solidification cracking, where the metal cracks as it cools and hardens.
- Fields
Materials Science
Engineering
- Topics
additive manufacturing
metal 3D printing
directed energy deposition
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2031
What they work on
- Reveal how solidification cracks start and grow in aluminum printed by laser directed energy deposition (L-DED), and how large cracks relate to pores in deposited parts.
- Test how selected alloying elements, added in-situ during printing, tune melt fluidity, solidification range and powder flowability so that aluminum deposits have fewer defects.
- Use inter-layer UIP, a scalable peening treatment applied between printed layers, to create compressive residual stress and finer microstructure that resist cracking.
- Map strain at high resolution with energy dispersive synchrotron X-ray diffraction to learn how repeated heating during L-DED changes the peened zone and cracking risk below the surface.
More about the research
This happens because printing creates fast cooling, steep temperature differences and tensile residual stress, a pulling stress locked into the part. Aluminum alloys are used widely in ships and aircraft and are especially prone to this problem. Printed aluminum parts could save fuel and resist stress corrosion cracking better than steel parts.
Why it matters
The work could make it possible to print and repair aluminum parts reliably for naval and aerospace structures. Such parts may be lighter and use less fuel, and resist stress corrosion better than steel. The cracking strategies developed could also inform printing of other crack-prone alloys, such as nickel-based and refractory alloys.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Prahalada Rao
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, VA·Engineering
Develop physics-informed machine learning models that predict outcomes of laser wire directed energy deposition (laser-and-wire metal 3D printing) and optimize laser power, scan speed and tool paths before printing.
Yue Zhou
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University-Daytona Beach, FL·Engineering
Measure how directed energy deposition settings affect both short-range clustering and overall 3D uniformity of micro-scale ceramic particles in printed metal matrix composites, using controlled experiments and advanced characterization.
Yiliang Liao
Iowa State University, IA·Engineering
Determine how the evolving, uneven thermal environment of a hot liquid support bath controls polymer diffusion and interlayer fusion in embedded printing, using deep-neural-network molecular dynamics, phase-field modeling, and experiments.
The school
Iowa State University: 23 labs on PI Pages, $462M a year on research, 327 research doctorates a year.
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