Automotive Summit draws industry experts

February 13, 2018
News Release
Metalworking

In advance of the 5th Global Automotive Lightweight Manufacturing Summit, to be held in Detroit Feb. 21-22, Dr. Paul J. Wolcott, applications engineer - additive manufacturing for General Motors, gave some insight into his thoughts about the conference and his presentation. Wolcott will be speaking on an exclusive 3-D manufacturing case study assessing the current trends in 3-D metal laser sintering.

For more information on the conference, visit www.global-lightweight-vehicle-manufacturing.com.
Please give us a little background about yourself and your current role.

My background is in automotive metallurgy solutions as well as advanced manufacturing using additive manufacturing. In my early career, I was focused on advanced powertrain materials systems and lightweight alloys. My PhD work focused on metals additive manufacturing applications, including dissimilar-material joining and embedded sensing.

More recently my role at GM has been focused on applications of additive manufacturing for automotive applications, including metallic components and tooling.

Your presentation assesses current trends in 3-D metal laser sintering. How important will this be to the future of the industry?

There has been a lot of development in the 3-D metal printing industry within the last five years or so. As the technologies develop and the applications are identified, I think there is some potential to change a lot of the conventional thinking in how we design and build vehicles. Current state is probably more focused on low-volume and tooling-type applications, but as technologies and cost structures improve, it could vastly change the way vehicles are designed and put together.

What is the most interesting project you’ve worked on?

The fortunate part of my job is that I get to work with a technology that is rapidly changing. I’ve got to be flexible to new methods while also identifying applications that can be used in the here and now. Working to change the way we think about designing and building vehicles allows me to look at new projects just about every day.

What will you be presenting at the summit?

I’ll be presenting an outlook on the 3-D printing industry for metals applications and an overview of how current developments are shaping things moving forward. I’m hoping to provide some example uses of the technology, as well as developments the industry will need moving forward to fully implement these technologies. Automotive applications have been somewhat limited due to the economics; however, as these technologies continue to rapidly develop, the automotive industry needs to be ready for implementation.