EES Seminar: Designing Manufacturing Systems under Energy Scarcity in Expeditionary Environments

Details

This presentation will give an overview of system requirements and architecture needed for successful manufacturing of spare parts and other products in expeditionary environments under energy scarcity. Expeditionary environments are typical “field work” environments with constant movement, reduced energy supply, chaotic and uncertain supply chains, security issues, poor weather, uncertain physical infrastructure, and similar characteristics. The most common examples include battlefields/war theaters, space colonization and exploration, disaster relief efforts, and remote research stations (such as those in the Arctic). This talk will focus on energy scarcity, exploring both ways to ensure a sufficient energy supply and reducing the energy needs during manufacturing. The reduction of energy needs will consist of reducing the total amount of energy required to run the manufacturing system, the rate at which it is needed, and the energy consumption schedule, as well as making it robust under interruptions. The talk will include a discussion of potential complementary manufacturing processes and methods to aid in this, as well as some analysis of ways in which the spare parts and products being made could be designed to require less energy to manufacture. A series of conclusions and recommendations will be provided, as well as a trade-off analysis between the manufacturing system design cost/schedule risk and the reduced supply of energy for manufacturing. While additive manufacturing technologies are useful and could be applied in this type of system, the focus will be on using the widest possible diversity of processes and materials. It will be assumed for the purpose of this talk that typical portable energy sources (for example, diesel generators) must be used, but the talk will briefly talk about future technologies such as small portable nuclear reactors. The lessons learned from this technology development will benefit sustainable manufacturing objectives in general in addition to aiding with optimizating field manufacturing.

Albert E. Patterson, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering Technology in the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution, with affiliate appointments in the Departments of Mechanical and Multidisciplinary Engineering and Materials Science at Texas A&M University. He holds a PhD in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, as well as BS and MS degrees in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He is the director of the Manufacturability-Driven Design Lab at Texas A&M University, where he leads an interdisciplinary team to solve fundamental and applied problems in mechanical design, manufacturing science, and life cycle engineering. Dr. Patterson is active with several major professional societies and serves on the Design for Manufacturing and the Lifecycle Technical Committee for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Prior to pursuing an academic career, Dr. Patterson worked for several years in the aerospace industry with the Boeing Company and the US Department of Defense through the GMD program under the Missile Defense Agency and the automated construction field with Autonomous and Unmanned Vehicle Systems Lab and the Army Corps of Engineers.