While Rhode Island’s manufacturing base has declined dramatically in recent decades, the key to revitalizing it may be found within the limitless world of high technology. Just ask Brent Stucker, an assistant professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering at the University of Rhode Island.
Stucker believes the work he, colleagues and students are doing at URI’s Rapid Manufacturing Center in Kingston could open wide the doors to new manufacturing jobs in Rhode Island – jobs that would far exceed in salary, those that have come before them.
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Such a possibility would come as good news to a manufacturing sector that has been wounded badly. University of Rhode Island Economist Leonard Lardaro’s Current Conditions Index – a measure of the strength of the state’s economy – has concluded that “Rhode Island is no longer a manufacturing-based economy.”
When Lardaro measures job growth over the past decade, he must factor in the fact that manufacturing jobs have fallen by 32,000 since 1989.
But those who speak to manufacturing strengths point to higher wages and the fact that progressive manufacturers – those who are investing in research and technology and tapping into high technology – are not just surviving, but growing. They are the companies that can benefit from the efforts of Stucker and the technology available at the Rapid Manufacturing Center.
Stucker sees the machines at the center as having the potential to directly impact the local economy.
”This opens a lot of opportunity for engineers who may have seen their work go overseas,” said Stucker. “We can begin moving the actual manufacturing processes back to New England, rather than seeing it go to Mexico, Portugal or China where a lot of the injection molding is going.”
The “this” to which Stucker refers, is his use of the selective laser sintering Sinterstation 2500plus and the Laser Engineered Net Shaping System (LENS). Sintering is a process in which materials are heated until they are stuck together.
The two machines came to the university at a total cost of $650,000 through the work of the URI Foundation, an independent charitable corporation that encourages and manages private donations, including endowments.
According to Stucker, the only other location in the world that has both machines is the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And those, he said, represent earlier versions without all of the capabilities of the machines in Kingston.
The Sinterstation laser sintering device, made by DTM Corp., Austin, Texas, replaces an older model that Stucker brought to URI when he arrived several years ago from Texas A&M University.
The LENS, built by Optimec Design Co., Albuquerque, New Mexico, allows Stucker to use metal and ceramic powders to create fully solid structures. The key, said Stucker, is that with the LENS, he can design and specify the shape and materials for each section of the mold or part. And he can design and specify the shape and materials for each section of the mold or part, he said.
That, said Stucker, allows for a metal powder to be used in one section, a ceramic in another, or a combination in a third.
”Now we can make something as simple as a cube or as complex as a jet engine component, not out of one costly material, but instead using a costly outer protective covering, like a titanium alloy, and using a cheap interior. This lowers the cost and improves productivity.”
Stucker sees the possibilities created by the technology as limitless.
”Steel can usually absorb between 100,000 and 500,000 shots of molten aluminum during mass production,” he said. “But a die casting tool with a molybdenum (metal) skin and a steel core could potentially absorb millions of shots during manufacturing.”
That technology, for example, could radically alter the process of building jet engines. The inside of a jet engine is very hot and corrosive, while the outside is cold, he said. With this process, the inside of the engine could be made with a more expensive material and the outside out of a cheaper material.
That means, according to Stucker, that for future long space flights to Mars or Jupiter, missions would only have to carry various ceramic or metal powders to repair parts while in flight.
”This is technology that NASA could use,” said Stucker.
Stucker’s work at the Rapid Manufacturing Center is important to the local business community. Until now, steel was the preferred choice for molds used in plastic injection molding for mass-produced products.
”But steel cools very fast, so you can’t make as many good per hour as you might want to, whether they be cars or G.I. Joes,” Stucker said.
Increasing such efficiencies, Stucker said, should help places like Rhode Island replace long lost manufacturing jobs.
”The reason a lot of manufacturing is going overseas is because of the high labor costs here,” he said. “We’re focusing on ways to make molds more quickly and in an automated fashion. It’s going to create engineering jobs.”
Terry Feeley, president of the advanced technology group at the Smithfield-based Laser Fare, sees the possibilities afforded because of the two machines as limitless. Feeley works closely with Stucker and has seen first-hand the attention the machines have brought to the Rapid Manufacturing Center.
“He is attracting a nationwide clientele who are calling to have things fabricated,” Feeley said. “Brent has the competitive advantage. You can build properties and tailor them to the application you want. People are looking at this process to make medical products. There is no waste.”
As Feeley lauds the possibilities – he is also quick to credit Stucker for his work.
“Brent is a remarkably gifted young man,” said Feeley. “Rhode Island is lucky to have him.”
