People: Prof. Xuan Song

Mission Area: Advanced Manufacturing and Materials

Lab: Additive Manufacturing-Integrated Product Realization Laboratory (AMPRL)

An interstate collaboration led by an Iowa Technology Institute faculty affiliate and joined by an Iowa State University mechanical engineering professor paid off as the Iowa team was one six winners of a U.S. Department of Defense research competition.  

Xuan Song, an assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering and director of Additive Manufacturing-Integrated Product Realization Laboratory (AMPRL), teamed with Travis Sippel, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Iowa State, and H.S. Udaykumar, professor of mechanical engineering and interim associate dean for graduate programs and research at the University of Iowa to win a Defense Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (DEPSCoR) competition.

The researchers will develop a new additive manufacturing (also known as 3D printing) technique and nano additives to achieve next generation energetic composites with highly tunable sensitivity and performance. If successful, the team will develop the capability to manipulate the porosity in energetic composites at the micro scale via this new 3D printing technique so as to improve the safety of energetic materials without sacrificing the energetic performance. 

Read more on the University of Iowa College of Engineering website