Distinguished University Professor John Lewandowski uses a forge to heat and squish a block of aluminum like Play-Doh in the Advanced Manufacturing and Mechanical Reliability Center, or AMMRC. It’s how he gains insight into how materials behave as they are formed into shapes of engineered products.

He envisions soon conducting the same tests with greater efficiency and flexibility, thanks to advanced sensing and controls systems. By integrating robotics into the forging process, a classic piece of factory machinery may become state of the art. And that could send ripples across the nation’s factory floors.

This fall, the National Science Foundation launched four new centers of engineering innovation. The Case School of Engineering is a partner in two of the new centers, including one focused on advanced manufacturing. Lewandowski’s lab, a materials proving ground in the White Building, is expected to play critical roles as it tests and deploys factory innovations.

“This is a large-scale, collaborative project with lots of industry interaction,” said Lewandowski, the founder and director of the AMMRC. “This is pretty cool. This is big news.”

The NSF announced in August that it will invest $104 million to establish the four new university-based Engineering Research Centers. They are aimed at sharpening the nation’s competitive edge and advancing technologies and discoveries in manufacturing, agriculture, health and urban planning. The new centers will initially be funded for five years at $26 million apiece, and the grants are renewable for another five years.

Case will lend its expertise to HAMMER—Hybrid Autonomous Manufacturing Moving from Evolution to Revolution — and CASFER, the Center for Advancing Sustainable and Distributed Fertilizer Production.

HAMMER is to focus on accelerating advanced manufacturing technologies, like robotics and machine learning. It will be led by Ohio State University in partnership with Case, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Northwestern University and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

The project builds on Case’s historic strengths in materials science and manufacturing, Lewandowski said. And it taps faculty expertise in robotics, sensors, controls, connected devices and the Industrial Internet of Things.

According to plans, university teams will collaborate with industry partners in the region to develop new systems and processes and train a new generation of engineers and technicians to use them.

Case’s uncommon facilities, like the AMMRC, Sears think[box] and ISSACS—the Institute for Smart, Secure and Connected Systems–helped it secure a role in a project that drew interest from hundreds of universities.

“What we are trying to do is work on the next generation of how things will be made,” said Lewandowski, who will lead Case’s team. Many of the innovations being tested by Case faculty will add “a digital thread” to classic manufacturing processes by integrating sensors, robotics, real-time material performance models and feedback control.

Case faculty bring diverse skills to the challenge. For example, Associate Professor Jennifer Carter, director of the Swagelok Center for Surface Analysis of Materials, is an expert at translating engineering ideas across fields. She’ll lead one of the center’s four “testbeds,” the one focused on numerical forming.

Professor Robert Gao, Chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and an expert in AI for manufacturing, will lead the research thrust focused on control, intelligence and autonomy.

Other Case and CWRU faculty playing leadership roles include:

• Arthur L. Parker Emeritus Professor Ken Loparo, PhD ’77, an expert in sensor technology and the founding faculty director of ISSACS
• Associate Professor Pan Li, a specialist in cybersecurity in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
• Professor Susan Helper of the Weatherhead School of Management, an expert on the economics and revitalization of U.S. manufacturing

In addition to HAMMER, the Case School of Engineering is part of the Center for Advancing Sustainable and Distributed Fertilizer Production, or CASFER a five-university effort to develop better fertilizers that pose less harm to the environment.

This center, led by Texas tech, also received a five-year, $26 million NSF grant with the possibility of renewing for five more years.

The Case team for CASFER will be led by Roger French, the Kyocera Professor in materials science and engineering.