The Pitt News T h e in de p e n d e n t st ude nt ne w spap e r of t he University of Pittsburgh
Student input, a work in progress
Zine Scene Page 6 October 6, 2015 | Issue 36 | Volume 106
Pitt print in three dimensions
Elizabeth Lepro
Assistant News Editor Students asked the Pitt administration to hear them out last week, and Kenyon Bonner said he’s listening. On Sept. 25, students from Free the Planet and Americans for Informed Democracy dropped off a letter for Chancellor Patrick Gallagher describing their disappointment with the lack of student engagement in Pitt’s Strategic Planning initiative, called the Plan for Pitt. Last Wednesday Bonner, the interim dean of students, met with nine students from Free the Planet, Students for Justice in Palestine and AID in a conference room near his office to discuss their concerns. “I felt like we could have done a better job [in the past] of communicating all the ways we did engage students,” Bonner said after the meeting. In order to gather student input about strategic planning last year, Pitt circulated its annual satisfaction survey and held town hall meetings for student engagement, according to Bonner. Students will have another opportunity to give input at an open forum that will take place tonight from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the William Pitt Union ballroom. Bonner said the forum was already in the works before he met with the students, but he hadn’t determined the date until last week. Bonner said he and Vice Provost David DeJong reached out to student leaders for input in the four-year strategic plan. Nick Goodfellow, a member of AID, said student leaders shouldn’t make up the extent of student engagement. “We questioned the methodology and made
Pitt researcher Minking Chyu, holding a printed metal blade, stands next to one of Pitt’s three 3-D printers. Courtesy of Emily Brindley
Emily Brindley Staff Writer
The labs beneath the basement of Benedum Hall look pretty barren to the uninformed visitor. But the Additive Manufacturing Lab, where Minking Chyu works, holds the weight of several million dollars’ worth of equipment. This lab’s purpose is additive manufacturing, commonly called 3-D printing. The most common type of 3-D printers create objects by depositing a small amount of plastic on the print bed, then adding additional plastic layer by layer until the plastic takes form. The machines in Chyu’s lab, however, are not See Forum on page 3 your average 3-D printers — they use metal
instead of plastic. These three expensive machines are more sophisticated than consumer-grade plastic printers, and cost from $350,000 to $1 million. In June, the National Energy Technology Laboratory awarded Pitt a grant through the University Turbine Systems Research Program. The grant included $798,594 from the Department of Energy and $216,896 in matching funds from Pitt, totaling more than $1 million. The funds will support Chyu’s research on using 3-D printing to create layers of metal to fortify the components inside gas turbines, which power most commercial jets, that will offer protection from the hot, harsh environment within the engine.
Pitt bought these printers over the past five years and used them for various research projects before Chyu began his current project. Chyu wants to see these protective shields become the standard in turbine engine design. The coating is made of a strong metal alloy — also known as an oxide dispersion strengthened alloy — that is difficult to manipulate in traditional cutting processes — or “subtractive manufacturing.” “Additive manufacturing — 3-D printing — has been around for a while, but gas turbines are their own machine,” Chyu said. “They aren’t kitchen equipment, or household See 3-D Printer on page 3