Preparing Tomorrow's workforce in lightweight materials: Properties, optimization and manufacturing processes

Abstract

The use of lightweight materials has been widely driven by the aerospace industry, ship building and wind turbine productions. In the automotive industry, the share of lightweight materials is expected to increase from 30 to 70 percent by the year 2030, primarily due to the aggressive new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. Therefore, the use of lightweight materials in manufacturing has caught massive attentions and emerged as a transforming innovation. Lightweight materials range from high strength steel and aluminum to carbon fiber composites, polymers, foams and plastics. Understanding their various material properties is driving the development of new and modified manufacturing processes. Lightweight materials are changing the nature of advanced manufacturing, and concurrent with this shift in materials and the corresponding changes in design and manufacturing processes is the need to train the workforce of today and tomorrow in these technologies. This paper presents the collaboration between Wayne State University and Washtenaw Community College on an NSF project to develop an integrated curriculum in the emerging technologies surrounding lightweight materials properties, optimization and manufacturing processes. The goal of this project is to engage industry and educators in developing a talent pipeline and initial curriculum addressing the material properties, design for manufacturability and manufacturing processes, as well as optimization and manufacturing processes associated with lightweight materials at the high school, community college and university levels to meet emerging industry needs for engineers and technicians in the manufacturing industry. This paper is a report that majorly represents the development progresses and results of workshops for K-12 teachers and community college faculty, including workshop agendas, lecture and laboratory materials, and analyses of participant feedback.