UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Guha Manogharan has been selected to receive the SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award for 2017. Created in 1980, the award is conferred annually to manufacturing engineers age 35 or younger in recognition of significant achievements and leadership in the field of manufacturing engineering as a young engineer.
Manogharan heads the Systems for Hybrid-Additive Process Engineering (SHAPE) lab at Penn State and is an expert in both additive manufacturing and the growing area of hybrid manufacturing. Additive manufacturing (AM) — often called 3-D printing — builds 3-D objects by adding layer-upon-layer of material such as metal, plastics, ceramics and even sand. Hybrid manufacturing on the other hand integrates AM with novel design methodologies and traditional processes such as machining, polishing and heat treatment.
Manogharan came to Penn State in 2016 from an assistant professorship at Youngstown State University. His research interests include additive manufacturing, hybrid manufacturing, biomedical implants via additive manufacturing, and CNC and non-traditional machining and design optimization for additive manufacturing.
Manogharan is an active member of ASME, IISE and SME and was named the 2016 Outstanding Young Investigator by the IISE- Manufacturing and Design Division. He holds a doctorate and a master of science degree in industrial and systems engineering from North Carolina State University and a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from SASTRA University, India. He also holds two international patents from work done as an undergraduate in India.
At Penn State, Manogharan also contributes to the Center for Innovative Materials Processing through Direct Digital Deposition and is collaborating with researchers at the University Park campus and at Penn State Hershey Medical Center on biomedical devices. Nationally, he is working with colleagues at National Institute of Standards and Technology and other universities on collaborative research projects in hybrid manufacturing and 3-D sand printing.
"It is exciting to apply my background in design and manufacturing for a broad range of applications and continue learning about other research areas," he said.
In the design and manufacturing arena, Manogharan is intrigued by the possibilities of hybrid manufacturing and development of design methodologies required to successfully produce metal AM parts.
"I plan to explore effectively integrating new technologies in additive manufacturing with traditional manufacturing into a new class of hybrid manufacturing," he said. "Additive manufacturing has a lot of strengths, but part tolerance and surface finishing are not among them. Traditional manufacturing techniques can achieve superior finish and precision, but are not flexible like additive manufacturing. The hybrid approach combines the best of both into a flexible process that can also be very precise and economical."
Manogharan is also interested in exploring additive manufacturing for non-conventional applications such as fuel cells and catalytic converters using binder-jetting, an additive manufacturing process in which a liquid binding agent is precisely deposited to join powder particles.
With students in the SHAPE lab, Manogharan is focusing in part on the use of sand-printing molds for metal casting. In this process, a mold is made by pressing a pattern into a sand mixture. The pattern leaves a cavity into which molten metal is poured to form a part.
"I want to actively engage undergraduate students in research projects and effectively incorporate the latest technological advancements in my classroom," he said.