Technological innovation – a benefit to the bottom line. Laser Institute of America (LIA) is creating a buzz of excitement and discovery with its second-annual Laser Additive Manufacturing (LAM) workshop in Houston, Texas, from May 11-12 which will provide industry experts from fields such as automotive, aerospace, oil and gas, biomedical, construction and others to discuss and tout laser-additive manufacturing’s vast potential. Lasers’ low heat and precision mean a world of possibilities and efficiencies for additive manufacturing, and LIA assures that the show will “have a significant impact on the widespread industrial implementations.”
“We recognize that additive manufacturing is a very broad topic area and at this point is hot in a number of industries,” notes Paul Denney, General Chair of the LAM workshop and director of the laser applications lab at the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology in East Hartford, CT. “That’s one reason we’re going to be in Houston. Tailoring surfaces for performance is a big issue for the oil and gas and energy industries located in that area, so that’s why we’re taking the show to them.”
Denney hopes to build upon the success of last year’s inaugural show, which drew about 100 attendees despite trying economic conditions. Attendees at this year’s workshop will hear plenary speaker Dr. William Steen share his thoughts on laser additive manufacturing and Fraunhofer’s Ingomar Kelbassa discuss cutting-edge aerospace applications.
The workshop is geared to manufacturing engineers and managers, process and R&D engineers, applications and construction engineers, precision-parts specialists and OEMs, among others. “We’d like to see a lot of the end users,” Denney urges. “We’d like to see the conference as almost like the risk-mitigator. While everyone wants to be on the cutting-edge, no one wants to be at the edge. The idea is to get people out there to talk about how the technology has been implemented and look at cross-fertilization from industry to industry and application to application so people who may want to get into an area feel more comfortable that the technology is more mature.”
The workshop’s cutting-edge value has been affirmed with sponsorships from major industry leaders like Alabama Laser, Coherent, Huffman, IPG Photonics, Laserline, Fraunhofer, Joining Technologies and Trumpf. Topics will include:
- Laser cladding for aerospace, automotive, DOD, heavy equipment, oil and gas, and power generation
- Hybrid Approach to Laser Cladding, Joining Dissimilar Metals, High End Laser Coating, Laser Hot Wire Metal Deposition with Solid and Cored Wire, New cladding techniques for component repair and general manufacturing
- Research, development and international applications of additive manufacturing.
- The Future of Laser Additive Manufacturing
For more information and to register, please visit the LIA LAM website at www.laserinstitute.org/LAM.