LSU Mechanical Engineering Faculty Team Up With NASA to Advance Additively Manufactured Materials
Thanks to a NASA EPSCoR (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) and Louisiana Board of Regents grant, LSU mechanical engineering professors Shengmin Guo and Michael Khonsari are working with NASA and LaSPACE to advance additively manufactured alloys to help reduce cost and lead times.
Launch vehicles and propulsion systems are very complex and must survive extreme thermal, dynamic, pressure, and environmental loads. The materials and alloys used in these systems are often challenging to produce, costly, and have long lead times. Thanks to a NASA EPSCoR (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) and Louisiana Board of Regents grant, LSU mechanical engineering professors Shengmin Guo and Michael Khonsari are working with NASA and LaSPACE to advance additively manufactured alloys to help reduce cost and lead times.
“Our goal through EPSCoR and other partnerships is to advance technologies, including novel alloys, for our missions and commercial spaceflight partners,” said Paul Gradl, NASA principal engineer at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “Part of our role is to understand the additive manufacturing processes better and provide accessible data so that NASA and industry can make better use of these processes and novel alloys.”