Dr. Snelling's Research
Dr. Drew Snelling, Assistant Professor, received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in 2015 from Virginia Tech. He then worked for General Electric in additive manufacturing R&D before coming to Georgia Southern. His research interests include metal additive manufacturing with an emphasis on design, materials processing and characterization of nickel and steel alloys, productionalization and efficiency, machine automation, workforce development, and education. His interests also include the fusion of traditional and non-traditional manufacturing technologies, such as metal casting (investment and sand) and additive manufacturing, to advance the state-of-the-art.
metal Additive Manufacturing
Metal Additive Manufacturing is an Advanced Manufacturing technology that fabricates metal parts in a layer by layer fashion enabling complex geometries. Parts are created in CAD and exported to additive manufacturing equipment to be built. It is considered a digital manufacturing technology. Although not limited to one specific technology, our emphasis is focused on laser-powder bed fusion (L-PBF).
DESIGN
► Design for Additive Manufacturing
► Parts specific parameter optimization
► Applications include robotics/automation, lightweight structures, aerospace, and nuclear
Materials
►Materials parameter development
►New AM specific alloy development
+Nickel, Cobalt, Aluminum, Titanium, Steels
►Material testing and characterization
+Precursor powder testing
+Grain structure analysis
+Mechanical testing
Processing and Productionalization
►Cost analysis and feasibility
►AM facilities design
►Quality control plan and implementation
+Calibrations of AM
+Robust parameter development techniques