AI tests 40 of 100 million ways to 3D-print a NASA rocket alloy & found 6 that worked
Researchers at Washington State University used AI to optimize the 3D printing process for a high-performance NASA alloy, GRCop-42. By testing configurations digitally, they found feasible parameters that allow the alloy to be printed on standard commercial equipment.
Why it matters
This breakthrough democratizes the use of advanced aerospace materials, making them cheaper and easier to manufacture for various industries.
Washington State University researchers used artificial intelligence (AI) to identify a faster, less costly way to 3D print a high-performance metal alloy. This has avoided the need to manually test more than 100 million possible printing configurations.The advance could eventually make the alloy, widely used in aerospace applications and potentially useful in other industries, printable on more common commercial equipment. The AI strategy developed by the team could also help with other scientific problems involving enormous numbers of possible experiments, including drug discovery.Researchers from WSU's School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering published the work in the Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
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