Despite the demonstrated success of metal additive manufacturing (AM) in various industries, the performance uncertainty of AM parts undermines the potential of deploying AM for high-consequence applications. Air travel. Space travel. That sort of thing.

Which is why the NSF is turning to assistant industrial and systems engineering professor Peter Liu. The Samuel Ginn College of Engineering's latest NSF CAREER Award winner recently sat down with the #GINNing crew to discuss the challenges of AM fatigue failure research — and the challenges of getting rice in northern China.