Keynote Speakers
Dr. Eleonora Ferraris
Eleonora Ferraris received a MSc degree in Industrial Engineering at the Politecnico of Milano in 2002, and a PhD degree in Materials Engineering at the Universita’ degli Studi Tor Vergata in 2006. The same year, she moved to Belgium for a Post-Doctoral position at the KU Leuven, and in 2008 she was granted with a Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship. Since 2013, she is appointed as Professor at the KU Leuven, Faculty of Engineering Technology, Campus De Nayer, with research and teaching responsibilities in manufacturing related disciplines, and she is the leader of the Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory (AML) research group. During her career, Ferraris developed a multidisciplinary profile, with competence ranging from micro electromechanical system (MEMS) to high precision and micromachining, material testing and system design. Her present research interest is Additive Manufacturing, including hot material extrusion (MEX) with filament feedstock and aerosol jet printing for smart devices and biomedical applications. During her career, she has been awarded with a Diploma A. Baroncelli (2007), a Technology Innovation Awards (2004), and multiple best paper awards. She is (co-)author of more than 150 publications, among peer reviewed journal and international conference, presentations and posters, also including 2 book chapters.
Dan Gelbart
Lasers in Advanced Manufacturing
The price of high-power lasers dropped from $30,000/KW to under $3000/KW in the last 10 years and keeps dropping. This has major implications not just for laser-based metal printing, but to many advanced manufacturing processes that are becoming viable at these prices. The talk will cover the key ideas of using lasers in thermal applications, where the heat rather than the wavelength matters. The ideas covered will be: taking advantage of the extreme non-linear nature of thermal imaging, matching power density and dwell times to the material, focal spot shaping, multi-channel laser systems, increasing focal depth by apodization and other subjects essential for designing successful laser based advanced manufacturing tools.
Dan Gelbart is a Canadian inventor and entrepreneur. He has over 150 US patents and is a cofounder or founder of several successful high-tech companies with cumulative revenues exceeding $20 billion. Dan is the founder of Rapidia (metal AM) and the co-founder of Creo (laser technology for printing), Kardium (medical) and Ikomed (medical). Other successful companies based on Dan’s patents were MDI (telecom) and Cymbolic Sciences (imaging). Creo was sold in 2005 for one billion dollars. It had 4500 employees and revenues of $1 billion per year. Dan has a basket full of medals and awards he collected over the years. His hobbies are restoring old scientific instruments, teaching and metrology. He has a popular YouTube course on building prototypes. He has an MSc and BSc in Electrical Engineering from the Technion.
Dr. Wataru Natsu
The State-of-the-Art of Current Localization Technology in Scanning Electrochemical Machining
Electrochemical machining (ECM) is an effective manufacturing method for both macroscopic and microscopic components required in important industrial fields such as aerospace, microelectronics and biomedicine, because of its distinct advantages of high machining efficiency for difficult-to-cut materials, excellent surface quality, no tool wear and phase-change layer. However, low machining accuracy caused by stray corrosion is the biggest bottleneck for its further application expansion in industries. Localization of machining current is the ultimate means of improving machining accuracy in ECM. In this speech, the principles, features and effects of various current localization technologies, including the latest initiatives, will be presented.
Dr. Wataru Natsu is currently a distinguished professor working in the Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering and the Department of Industrial Technology and Innovation, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT). Dr. Natsu obtained his bachelor and master degrees in mechanical engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), respectively in 1982 and 1987. He served as a lecturer during December 1988 and October 1990 in SJTU. After obtaining his doctor degree in mechanical systems engineering from TUAT in 1995, He had worked as a chief engineer, and then the deputy chief in the R&D division in Kuroda Precision Industries Ltd., a precision equipment manufacturer, for 7 years. Dr. Natsu’s research interests are in manufacturing and machining, especially in electrochemical machining and electrical discharge machining, and management of technology (MOT). Dr. Natsu is the fellow of The Engineering Academy of Japan (EAJ), and The Japan Society for Precision Engineering (JSPE). He has served as the president of Japan Society of Electrical Machining Engineers (JSEME), and board director of JSPE and Japan MOT Society, and currently serves as auditor of JSPE and board director of JSEME.
Spotlight Speakers
Dr. Krishna Kumar Saxena
The Future of Micro and Precision Electrical Machining Research: Going Beyond Holes and Steels
KU Leuven has a long-standing research history in the field of micro and precision electrical machining. This talk will therefore highlight the newer research activities in electrical micromanufacturing including the in-house developed hybrid laser-ECM technology, AFM-ECM technology, micro-EDM technology and related applications towards advanced materials processing, precision components and ceramic injection moulding. The talk will introduce a mix of fundamental and production-oriented research in line with mechanism-based understanding towards advancing state-of-the-art in electrical manufacturing technologies. The presentation will highlight research advances beyond traditional trends of drilling holes and machining steels in the community. The talk will also highlight the future prospects where electrical micromanufacturing can compete well with other competitive technologies especially for the application cases which are still very difficult with other machining technologies. This research track has received funding from EU H2020, FWO (Belgian Flemish National Science Foundation) and KU Leuven funds so far.
Krishna Saxena is currently working as a senior FWO postdoctoral fellow in department of mechanical engineering at KU Leuven, Belgium after serving first term as FWO junior postdoctoral fellow. He is also serving as a lecturer at KU Leuven Campus Bruges and Geel. During Nov. 2022 – Feb. 2023, he worked as a visiting assistant professor/visiting FWO postdoc at department of precision engineering at University of Tokyo, Japan. He obtained his Ph.D. degree as a Marie Curie Early Stage Researcher (EU H2020 Microman) in mechanical engineering from KU Leuven, Belgium, in 2020 and thereafter worked as a postdoctoral research engineer on the EU project PROSURF. His doctoral research was sponsored by two European projects: European Marie Curie ITN H2020 project ‘MICROMAN’ and EU Factories of Future project ‘PROSURF’ while receiving trainings on different manufacturing and metrology aspects at European/UK universities (U-Bremen, PoliMi, DTU, U-Bradford, U-Nottingham, U-Strathclyde). He has also conducted short research stays at TU Chemnitz, Germany during his doctoral research. He carried out his master thesis research exchange at Institute of metal forming technology, University of Stuttgart, Germany (2016) while pursuing masters at Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar and subsequently also worked as a researcher at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Centre for Advanced Composite Materials, University of Auckland, New Zealand (2015). He has 8+ years of research experience in various aspects of subtractive non-traditional manufacturing technologies.
Dr. Alistair Speidel
‘Seeing’ Materials within the Machine Tool: Towards Mass Characterisation on the Factory Floor
The aim of this talk is to explore new approaches to materials characterisation, developed at Nottingham, that have the potential to be deployed within the machine tool on the factory floor. The tools with which manufacturers can manipulate materials and their microstructures are rapidly evolving. Intensely researched fields such as additive manufacturing are challenging conventional manufacturing approaches and offer new capabilities, not only in terms of part morphology, but they also allow compositional and microstructural graduation (i.e. ‘functional grading’). Simultaneously, the palette of available materials continues to expand to enable these nascent manufacturing technologies, and to allow the creation of parts that can be worked harder over longer time periods.
The increasing complexity of both the materials and manufacturing processes challenges our ability to verify part quality and assure appropriate value add. Couple this to emerging trends including mass customisation and the desire to repair existing parts of high value, the demand for mass characterisation must increase. However, we are currently reliant on technologies that are costly, destructive, time intensive and cannot be used at the point of value add. Here, the challenges and opportunities in this research space will be explored, and we will showcase how we are adapting an electrochemical machine tool to enable material removal and material characterisation.
Alistair Speidel is an Assistant Professor of Sustainable Engineering in the Department for Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Nottingham. He graduated with a PhD in Manufacturing Engineering from Nottingham in 2018, after which he was awarded an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Research Fellowship to explore novel ambient condition materials characterisation approaches. His research is concerned with developing new approaches to extracting materials information during high value manufacturing operations, understanding process mechanisms during non-conventional machining, and routes to minimise or reutilise manufacturing waste in production. Alistair has 10 years of experience working with selective non-conventional manufacturing processes and is a Member of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.
Dr. Sarah Wolff
Repurposing, Reusing, and Recycling Feedstocks for Laser Additive Manufacturing
The overarching objective of this talk is to discuss how the characteristics of repurposed, reused, and recycled feedstock influence melting and solidification in laser additive manufacturing (AM) in pursuit of a circular economy and industrial symbiosis. The scope of this talk will focus on the laser directed energy deposition (L-DED) process, which is an AM process for near-net shape component fabrication, re-manufacture, and repair. Though repurposing, reusing, and recycling feedstock for the L-DED process can minimize environmental impact of metals production, there may be contaminants in the feedstock that may alter production and the final component. These contaminants include oxidation and ”tramp” elements, or impurities, that may result in the degradation of material properties. On the other hand, the characteristics of reused and recycled material, including chemical composition and morphology, interact with laser AM processes for unique melting and solidification pathways not observed with atomized feedstock. This talk discusses the influence of tramp elements and feedstock morphology on melting, oxidation, particle segregation, intermetallic phase formation, and overall microstructure in AM components. The approaches to reveal these influences include in situ and operando experimental methods, including high-speed optical and synchrotron X-ray imaging and diffraction to capture the phase transformations during solidification in real-time at multiple scales. This talk will also discuss the vision for the future of laser manufacturing, including how processes can align with a circular economy, industrial symbiosis, and a sustainable world.
Sarah Wolff is an assistant professor in the mechanical and aerospace department at the Ohio State University. Her previous roles include an assistant professorship in the industrial and systems engineering department at Texas A&M University and an Enrico Fermi Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory. She graduated from Northwestern University in 2018 with a PhD in mechanical engineering. She was awarded the 2022 SME Sandra L. Bouckley Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer. Sarah Wolff is a CIRP research affiliate, an associate editor for Additive Manufacturing Letters, and on the editorial board for International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture. She is also active in broadening participation for women in manufacturing and works on international educational opportunities for graduate students.
Dr. Katrin Wudy
Beam Shaping the Next Innovation Leap in Powder Bed Fusion of Metals?!
Can laser beam shaping address the critical obstacles in laser-based powder bed fusion of metals (PBF-LB/M)? PBF-LB/M currently faces challenges such as limited production speed and process anomalies, which may induce part defects. While Gaussian beams are the standard in PBF-LB/M, they induce melt pools prone to spatter formation and keyholing, resulting in keyhole porosity.
At the Professorship of Laser-based Additive Manufacturing, we answer the research question on how spatial and temporal beam shaping in PBF-LB/M affects the process signature and resulting part properties. This talk will highlight the integration of beam shaping with advanced monitoring methods, aiming to create a toolbox for first-time-right manufacturing in PBF-LB/M. Our beam-shaping strategies encompass temporal scanner-based techniques and spatial beam shaping with spatial light modulators, acousto-optic deflectors, and a multi-core fiber concept. Additionally, we are exploring innovative monitoring technologies, such as integrating sphere measurements and multi-spectral imaging to analyze the effect on the process signature.
This presentation will evaluate spatial and temporal beam shaping technologies based on their complexity, design freedom, and performance in PBF-LB/M. This is supported by novel monitoring techniques that measure the absolute temperature during exposure and quickly detect the sweet spot for processing. By combining these methods, we aim to achieve a more stable melt pool and increase production speed, ultimately reducing resource and energy consumption. In the future, beam shaping could be used to tailor the microstructure of parts within a single process or to manufacture hard-to-weld materials, opening up entirely new applications for PBF-LB/M.
Katrin Wudy’s research focuses on laser-based additive manufacturing techniques with both plastics and metals, covering the entire process chain from material development and innovative process strategies to process monitoring and quality management in additive manufacturing. Since June 2024, she has been an Associate Professor for Laser-based Additive Manufacturing at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), one of Europe’s leading universities, and a member of the TU9 Universities of Technology Excellence in Engineering and Science in Germany. Prior to this role, she was Assistant Professor at TUM. Katrin Wudy earned her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuernberg (FAU), focusing on the aging behavior of Polyamide 12 in selective laser sintering in 2017. At FAU, she managed the Collaborative Research Center 814 (SFB 814) – Additive Manufacturing and was a group leader at the Institute of Polymer Technology. Katrin Wudy is actively involved in various scientific societies and committees, including the steering committee of TUM. Additive and in the selection committee for the Allocation of Humboldt Research Fellowships. Her contributions include overseeing the Master’s program in Mechatronics, Robotics, and Biomechanical Engineering. Katrin Wudy’s extensive expertise positions her as a leader in laser-based additive manufacturing.
Dr. Yonghua Zhao
Breaking Barriers in Electrochemical Machining: Exploring Gas Evolution and Plasma-Driven Innovations
This talk will explore recent breakthroughs in electrochemical machining (ECM), highlighting the transition from traditional anodic dissolution to advanced gas- and plasma-integrated techniques. Key process innovations in plasma discharge and gas evolution will be discussed, with a focus on their impact on enhancing precision, efficiency, and machining versatility in ECM. Advancements in controlling gas dynamics and plasma phenomena will be showcased, along with case studies demonstrating their practical applications and industrial relevance.
By leveraging these innovations, new possibilities have emerged for improving the polishing of large-roughness additive-manufactured components and expanding ECM’s material scope. Attendees will gain insights into how these advancements are shaping ECM’s future, offering greater flexibility and applicability across various industries.
Yonghua Zhao earned his B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology, China, in 2009 and 2011, and his Ph.D. in Precision Engineering from the University of Tokyo, Japan, in 2015, specializing in electrical machining. Following his Ph.D, he served as an assistant professor at the University of Tokyo from 2015 to 2018. Dr. Zhao currently is a committee member of the Non-traditional Machining Branch of the Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society (CMES) and a full member of the Japan Society for Precision Engineering (JSPE). He also holds the position of foreign member on JSPE’s Research Affiliate Committee.
Since joining the Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering at Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in 2018, Dr. Zhao’s research has concentrated on advancing electro-physical and chemical machining (EPCM) technologies. His work focuses on tackling key challenges in process mechanisms, machine tool development, and digitalization, with a dual emphasis on both fundamental understanding and application-driven innovations to enhance EPCM performance and explore its novel applications.