It’s easy to miss the new lab space tucked into a corner of the Herbert Wertheim Laboratory for Engineering Excellence. In this hermetically sealed room, students are outfitted with clean suits and air filtration devices. Sparks are flying. Lasers are blasting.
In this space, the long-awaited Renishaw AM-400 laser melting system — more accurately, a laser powder bed fusion printer — is running, having recently undergone required maintenance. This kind of additive manufacturing, known as L-PBF, is basically a 3D printer that prints with metal. It can be configured to use titanium, stainless steel, aluminum, and others. It is now ready for service at UF.
And thanks to Jia “Peter” Liu, Ph.D., an Industrial Systems & Engineering (ISE) associate professor at the University of Florida, students finally have access to it.
Liu is the Trey Lauderdale Faculty Fellow in UF’s ISE Department. He’s also the new custodian of this technological marvel.