Bryan Naab obtained a BSc (Hons) in Science with Nanotechnology from DIT in 2018. He went on to obtain his master’s degree in Material Science and Engineering at UCD in 2019. Bryan is a PhD researcher at I-Form, where he is investigating the relationship between processing conditions and final part performance in metal additive manufacturing processes. He is part of the EPSRC-SFI Centre for Doctoral Training in Advanced Metallic Systems program, which pools metallurgical expertise and resources from universities and research institutes in Dublin, Sheffield and Manchester to train the next generation of leaders in metallurgy. Bryan has a keen interest in process optimisation, data, materials and manufacturing.
Research Interests (Lay Summary)
Additive manufacturing (AM) of metallic components is a relatively new manufacturing process which allows the user to create any structure directly from a CAD (computer aided design) file. The process works by selectively melting thin layers of metal powder and building the layers up one by one. AM is an attractive option for the manufacturing of high value components with minimum material waste. For this reason, AM is utilised in highly regulated sectors such as biomedical and aerospace, where component performance is critical. By gaining a greater understanding of the AM process and how it relates to the final performance, safer, cheaper and overall higher quality products can be designed and produced.
Technical Summary
Fatigue strength predictability is a problem in additively manufactured components due to the fact that small changes in processing parameters can have a large impact on the components’ physical properties. Fatigue strength depends on a material’s ability to resist crack propagation. A number of material attributes such as porosity, surface roughness and ductility can affect how cracks are formed and grow in a material. These material attributes can be tuned by optimising the AM process parameters or by post-processing such as heat treatments, HIP (hot isostatic pressing) or surface finishing.
Bryan is working on the optimisation and characterisation of AM processes used for the production of titanium-based orthopaedic implants. By selectively varying AM process parameters and measuring the fatigue properties of the resulting build-parts, a deep knowledge of the relationship between processing conditions and final component performance can be obtained.