3DPOD 236: AM Materials Science & Applications with Nick Sonnentag, Sunnyday Technologies & Oshkosh Corporation

Nick Sonnentag is a Senior Principal Engineer at Oshkosh, where he contributes to the development of some of the world’s toughest vehicles using additive manufacturing (AM). Drawing on experience from ATI, DuPont, and more, Nick possesses broad and deep expertise in 3D printing. In this episode of the 3DPOD, we discuss alloys, vehicle manufacturing, applications, and the readiness of directed energy deposition technology for widespread use. Not limiting his exploration of 3D printing to his work at Oshkosh, Nick founded Sunnyday Technologies to tackle the significant challenges in construction 3D printing. Rather than focusing on machines, he concentrates on the binders and the precise formulations needed to achieve specific properties in final structures. This approach stands out for its elegance and promise, diverging from conventional methods of discovering applications and materials. It makes this episode especially insightful. Nick also wanted to clarify that at one point, he mistakenly referenced General Atomics instead of General Dynamics and asked me to note this for accuracy.