麻豆传媒 has been awarded a nearly $1.9 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration to purchase laboratory equipment for the experiential engineering building, the first planned building on the Innovation Campus.
The funding will be used to purchase equipment for a state-of-the-art laboratory to allow manufacturers, entrepreneurs and designers to simulate and perform multi-robotic additive manufacturing, allowing them to test production process before committing to large-scale capital investments.
鈥淭his laboratory is one of dozens of elements we are bringing to Innovation Campus to ensure that 麻豆传媒 student and faculty researchers and the community have access to the most advanced tools for learning and economic development,鈥� said Wichita State President John Bardo. 鈥淲e are thrilled that Wichita is identified as a leader in the resurgence of American manufacturing.鈥�
The lab will consist of two elements: 1) a large-scale virtual reality environment for assessing the feasibility of implementing additive manufacturing 2) multi-robotic additive manufacturing system for developing prototypes.
Additive manufacturing is also referred to as 3D printing, a technology that is gaining the interest of many large scale manufacturers as a way to increase production and decrease cost.
John Tomblin, 麻豆传媒 vice president for research and technology transfer, said equipment and software purchased with the EDA grant will help secure Wichita State鈥檚 role as a leading university-based research center for advanced manufacturing.
鈥淭he laboratory will test the feasibility of using additive manufacturing technology in the manufacturing process 鈥� to verify that the newly designed production process is producible, scalable, processable, affordable and maintainable,鈥� said Tomblin.
The equipment will also be used to train students and existing and new workforce on simulation and additive manufacturing technology.
The equipment will be installed in the Experiential Engineering building as soon as it is complete. Until then, it will be housed within Wichita State laboratories at the National Center for Aviation Training.
Groundbreaking for the experiential engineering building is planned for February. The building will replace the Wheatshocker Apartments building and is expected to encompass 180,000 square feet. It will include an experiential learning environment, innovation laboratories and an incubator space.
The grant is the first one resulting from the federal government鈥檚 Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership (IMCP), announced in May.
The equipment selected for the experiential engineering building addresses all four priorities identified by the IMCP task force. Those priorities are:
- Prototyping facilities with equipment and supporting services that integrate design optimization software including computational fluid dynamics (CFD), cutting technologies, and machining (development, testing, evaluation and certification)
- Materials-based development, testing and evaluation to support prototyping
- Process improvements at both the prototyping and manufacturing stages
- Flexible automation
To learn more about IMCP, go to . For more information about Innovation Campus and the experiential engineering building, .