AMPL Triple
2025-2026 Senior Capstone Design Project
Designed the frame and movement system of an integrated hybrid manufacturing center combining press forming, CNC milling, and laser wire directed energy deposition.
Skills: System Integration, SolidWorks CAD, Siemens NX CAM, CNC Milling, Machine Design, Teamwork
Overview
As part of the Mechanical Engineering curriculum at Northwestern University, all students are required to participate in a two quarter Capstone class. In this class, I worked with a team of 7 other Northwestern seniors, to design the frame and movement system of the hybrid manufacturing center for our client, the Advanced Manufacturing Processes Laboratory (AMPL).
AMPL
The Advanced Manufacturing Processes Laboratory (AMPL) is a laboratory at Northwestern University that aims to advance hybrid manufacturing solutions. Our assignment was to design a critical system for a hybrid center that would include conventional milling, press forming, and laser wire DED. My team chose the frame and movement system as the critical system.
DEsign Work
My contribution to the design work with the X-Y Gantry system. This included selecting ball screws, linear rails, and motors; as well as the design of the custom connection parts. I worked with two other team members to iterate through component selection and Ansys FEA to achieve minimal deflection under forming loads. Overall design work was done using Solidworks, and the team expanded to Ansys to run thermal and structural analysis.
Manufacturing
As my contribution to the manufacturing work, I helped CNC testing plates. Due to the size of the frame, as well as the budget and time constraints of the class, my team focused on manufacturing mock build plates to use for thermal and force testing. I did not design the plate myself, but I wrote the CAM using Siemens NX, and did the machining work on a Haas VF2.
Full Report
As part of the class deliverables, my team wrote a full project report, detailing the work we did during both quarters. It is embedded and available for download below.
Griffin Braunreiter 