Enhancing Additive Manufacturing Education Using Virtual Rapid Prototyping Simulator Tool

The increased use of agile manufacturing through 3-D printing in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) there have been several Additive Manufacturing projects commissioned by U.S Navy, Pentagon and associated defense industries. Worth mentioning is the use of 3D printers by defense giants such to manufacture tools and components used for building F-35 Joint Strike Fighters. With the widely observed use of Additive Manufacturing technologies for agile product development in industries, there exists a vital need on innovating, identifying and establishing innovative ways to train emerging manufacturing engineering workforce. This paper, investigates the use of a virtual Rapid Prototyping (RP) simulator developed at The University of Texas at El Paso especially for training and preparing students to meet the needs of industry and for promoting advanced manufacturing technologies in higher education. Considering the increase in computer aided education in this industrial era, RP simulator tool developed provides interested users with a hands on training with an immersive virtual experience to better understanding AM at no significant cost. The developed Rapid Prototyping (RP) simulator tool provided a platform that aided in a hybrid instructional approach for providing both hands-on and virtual learning. The authors in this paper, explore if a non-traditional instruction approach like the RP simulator could compete with and/or substitute to the traditional method (i.e., a face-to-face class). Background With commercial and technological advances of 3-D printing in the current manufacturing continuum, many industries and disciplines are looking to effectively integrate additive manufacturing. A given 3-D printing technology usually unfolds with a computer-aided model to design a product, manufacturing it layer by layer using material such as plastics, metals and in some cases human tissues. Usually, after the design freeze of a product, industries aim for mass production to rapidly introduce it to the market with a slash in time for production. It is projected that the global 3-D printing industry value will rapidly grow from a current $4.5 Billion in 2014 to $17.2 Billion in 2020. 3-D Printing, a technology that makes manufacturing agile along with significantly reducing the waste co-products, is being widely adapted by Pentagon and associated defense industries for several applications along with making sophisticated military equipment. In June 2014, Aerojet Rocket dyne successfully tested an engine built entirely using 3-D printing technology. Over the past 2 years, U.S. Department of Defense has spent more than $2 million on 3-D printers, with their uses ranging from research in the field of medical health to weapons development. Also, it is to be noted that the Obama administration has launched a $30 million pilot program that includes research on using 3-D printing for building weapon parts. Considering this widely-adopted technology trend, there is a significant need to address the technical skills of the emerging workforce and improve their quality of training especially in the field of additive manufacturing. As 21 century industries transition to globally interconnected conglomerates (Industry 4.0), the training programs also need to evolve to provide the high-tech skills required. This portrays a need for innovative focused advanced engineering training techniques that can increase the pool of highly skilled American workers with required proficiency. However, the main implication of teaching emerging technologies in academia pertains to not many institutions (both schools and colleges) continually being able to afford and procure the required technology infrastructure. Accessibility boundaries and constraints limit a given students exposure to emerging technology though available at several major institutions. Authors of this paper towards exploring innovative pedagogical methods in keeping students interested along with an aim of providing unrestricted 24x7 access to technology training, provide an overview of a tutorial on 3D printing technology developed based on Uprint SE plus 3D printer. This tutorial was developed with a main goal of providing access to students 24x7 for understanding and learning the operation of the said 3D printer without any incurred cost, harm, or even training personnel hours. Developed as a successor to legacy Virtual Cyber-Based Rapid Manufacturing tutorial based on (FDM) 3000 machine, this tutorial is a result of the efforts an attempt at Industrial, Manufacturing and Systems Engineering (IMSE) Department of The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). The authors foresee to integrate this tutorial to the current Industrial and Manufacturing courses both at an undergraduate and a graduate level at UTEP. Overview of Uprint SE plus based Rapid Prototyping simulator development To provide a brief background, uPrint SE plus 3D printer is manufactured by Stratasys Inc. It is an FDM technology based machine that is highly integrated where all its tasks are a set of pre-coded modules which are automatically performed. The operation of this printer is based on a simple interface provided that helps the users to navigate and operate the machine easily. Illustrated in figure 1 is uPrint SE plus 3D printer. Figure 1. uPrint SE Plus 3D Printer manufactured by Stratasys To replicate the exact functionality of the printer’s real time operation and its response to the given commands in the virtual simulator, a touch interface was developed for the user to see exactly how the printer reacts to the commands given by mimicking every function of the control panel related to uPrint SE plus-3D printer. To set a scenario, if there is no part being built by the printer and if there is no part set in the queue of the printer, the control panel display an “Idle” status. Similarly, if the printer has a part in queue to be build, the display message on the panel changes to “Start Part” status. There are several similar steps that transition from one to the other illustrated in figure 2 as a flow chart that are embedded into the virtual simulator. Figure 2. The flowchart of uPrint SE Plus 3D printer used to replicate into the Virtual Simulator To provide a user rich and immersive experience, two major steps were involved in developing the simulator. The first step was to extract the 3-dimensional model of the printer itself i.e. in this case the model of uPrint SE plus 3D printer. However, to replicate the printer actions in the simulator the model had to be transferred to a file compatible with a programming language. The 3D model of the printer was created in SolidWorks software (shown in Figure 3). Later involved using this model to replicate the printer’s actions with the help of a programing interface. This included saving the 3D model developed using solid works to a standard vrml97 format which was then converted to a .x file compatible with c-sharp programing language. Illustrated in figure 4 are the 3D model and its conversion to .X file. Figure 3. uPrint SE plus 3D model developed in SolidWorks software Figure 4. uPrint SE plus 3D model in (a) VRML 97 and (b) X file The virtual simulator was initially developed to run on Windows and Mac-OS platform computers however; with the intention to extend this simulator to be used on mobile based platforms such as tablets and cell phones, visual studio was used to develop a graphical user interface (GUI). Figure 5 illustrates the screen shots of the beta version of mobile compatible uPrint simulator. Figure 5. Screenshots of mobile beta version of the uPrint simulator uPrint Simulator for Additive Manufacturing Learning With the main goal of the simulator development being enhancing student educational experience, especially to improve student learning in Additive Manufacturing domain, the authors looked to understand the influence of the tool in student learning compared to traditional approach. This tool was integrated to the course titled “3D Printing: Basics and Applications” at IMSE UTEP. The course was designed to deal with various aspects of additive and subtractive application ranging from prototyping to production. A major emphasis was on using AM technologies for direct manufacturing of end-user parts. The Student Learning outcomes (SLOs) of the course at its completion were for each student to be able to: •Provide a comprehensive overview of 3D Printing technologies including descriptions of related technologies including design and 3DP-specific software and post-processing/part finishing approaches. •Discuss the wide variety of new and emerging applications like micro-scale 3DP, medical applications, direct printing of electronics and directly manufacturing end-use components. •Explain the capabilities, limitations, and basic principles of alternative 3DP technologies. •Evaluate and select appropriate 3DP technologies for specific applications. •Apply 3DP techniques (including CAD) to a challenging rapid manufacturing application. •Identify, explain, and prioritize some of the important research challenges in 3DP. To analyze student learning outcomes and towards understanding student learning effectiveness, the legacy virtual simulator FDM 3000 (see Tseng et al, 2014 for more details on FDM 3000 simulator) that was previously developed at IMSE UTEP was used in order to compare the influence of the new RP simulator in AM learning. To understand the efficiency of the developed virtual learning tool for AM,”3D printing-Basics & Applications” class helped in collecting data/info related to teaching effectiveness through using (1) FDM 3000 Machine, (2) U-Print Machine, (3) The old version RP simulator (on FDM 3000) and (4) The new version RP simulator(on uPrint SE Plus); to understand if a non-traditional instruction approach like the old/new version RP simulator could compete with and/or substitute to the traditional method (i.e., a face-to-fa