M A T E R I A L S
BUILDING THE TOOLS
OF THE NEXT MANUFACTURING REVOLUTION
Over a century ago, a visitor to
Henry Ford’s new assembly line
in Highland Park, Michigan, could
watch workers build automobiles
from interchangeable parts, and witness a
manufacturing revolution in progress.
Today, someone who wants to glimpse the
future of manufacturing should make a visit
to John Hart’s lab. Through projects including
next-generation 3-D printers, carbon nanotube
fibres for use in electric motors and lightweight
composites, and printing flexible materials for
medical devices, Hart and his research group are
developing technologies to reimagine the way
things are made, from the nanoscale to the scale
of the global economy.
Hart, an associate professor of mechanical
engineering at MIT and the director of the
Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity
and the Center for Additive and Digital Advanced
Production Technologies, is an expert in 3-D
printing, also known as additive manufacturing,
which involves the computer-guided deposition
of material layer by layer into precise threedimensional
shapes. (Conventional manufacturing
usually entails making a part by removing material,
for example through machining, or by forming the
part using a mold tool.)
Hart’s research includes the development of
advanced materials — new types of polymers,
nanocomposites, and metal alloys — and the
development of novel machines and processes
that use and shape materials, such as high-speed
3-D printing, roll-to-roll graphene growth, and
manufacturing techniques for low-cost sensors
and electronics.
“In my lab, through our partnerships with industry
and via the startup companies I’m involved in,
we’re seeking to redefine manufacturing at scale
and rethink how resources are committed to
manufacturing throughout the product life cycle,”
Hart says. “One major focus is creating new kinds
of 3-D printers. These are printers that are 10 to
100 times faster, more accurate, and process
both well-known materials and materials that have
never been possible before.”
A FOCUS ON APPLICATIONS AND SCALE
Hart grew up in the Detroit area — one of the
country’s great manufacturing hubs since
Henry Ford’s time — and studied mechanical
engineering as an undergraduate at the University
of Michigan. He spent summers interning
for General Motors, and when he started in
the master’s degree program in mechanical
engineering at MIT, he thought he would
eventually make his way back to the auto industry.
Once he got to Cambridge, though, new horizons
opened up. “Coming to MIT, I simply enjoyed the
environment, the sense of challenge, learning, and
open-mindedness,” he says.
Hart’s work with his advisor, professor of
mechanical engineering Alexander Slocum,
sparked an interest in nanomaterials
manufacturing. He decided to pursue a PhD
investigating new ways to build carbon nanotubes,
which are long molecules that are stronger than
steel and more conductive than copper.
When he returned to MIT in 2013 as a new faculty
member, after several years as a professor at
the University of Michigan, he started exploring
another new frontier: 3-D printing.
As the director of the newly formed MIT Center
for Additive and Digital Advanced Production
Technologies and the co-founder of two Bostonarea
3-D printing startups — Desktop Metal
and VulcanForms — Hart is advancing this
frontier on multiple fronts, through education,
entrepreneurship, and engagement with industry.
Although the research projects in his lab span
from the nanoscale to the macroscale, he has
an eye trained on the bigger picture. Leveraging
advances in computation, digitisation, and
automation, along with his own expertise with
materials processing and machine design,
Hart’s group sees the potential for 3-D printing
to dramatically streamline and speed up global
supply chains. The group is also pursuing a
series of projects related to Hart’s longstanding
interest in carbon nanotubes, exploring ways to
form nanotubes into advanced wires, fibres, and
structural composites.
Hart sees this convergence of digitally driven
manufacturing technologies as a means of
overcoming the logistical hurdles of long lead
times, complex supply chains, and steep capital
requirements.
And, he is motivated by finding new applications
to benefit society at large. “That could be a better
medical implant or sensor to measure the health
of soil, a wire that is more conductive than copper,
or a new business enabled by rapid access to 3-D
printing in a dense city or a rural environment,” he
says.
“If you want to make a new medical device, or
even an automotive part, think of the supply chain
you have to figure out and manage. Every part
requires a lot of detail, time and investment to
design, validate, and eventually produce, whether
it’s made locally or overseas. One reason 3-D
printing is fundamentally different is that it allows
designers and engineers to iterate more quickly,
and to, in the near future, produce parts on
demand in large quantities without fixed up-front
investment.”
SHAPING THE FUTURE
To be sure, “It’s not that 3-D printing will replace all
of manufacturing or even a tenth of it in the near
future,” Hart says. “It is the cornerstone of a digital
transformation in the way we go about designing,
producing, and servicing products in a responsive,
market-driven manner.”
As these new technologies become more
widely used, the resulting changes in industrial
From industrialising 3-D printing to creating nanomaterials at scale, John
Hart is reimagining the way things are made.
40 July 2019