What is 3D printing?
Additive manufacturing also called 3D printing. It is a process of making three dimensional solid objects from a digital file. The creation of a 3D printed thing is reached using additive procedures. In an additive process an object is created until the entire item is created, by laying down successive layers of material. Each one of those layers may be considered a thinly sliced horizontal cross-section of the eventual thing.
It all starts with making a virtual layout of the object you would like to generate.
3d scanners use different technologies to build a 3d model including time-of-flight, structured / modulated light, several more and volumetric scanning.
This really is a clear hint that future and some present handheld devices like smartphones will have incorporated 3d scanners. Digitizing real objects will become as easy as taking a picture. Prices of 3d scanners range from quite high-priced professional industrial devices to 30 USD DIY apparatus anyone can make at home, check aliexpress. 🙂
Procedures and technologies
Not all 3D printers make use of the same technology. There are several ways to print and those available are additive, differing chiefly in the way in which layers are assemble to generate the final object.
Some procedures use softening or melting substance to produce the layers. Selective laser sintering (SLS) and also fused deposition modeling (FDM) are the most typical technologies by using this method of printing. Another way of printing is when we discuss healing a photo- resin that is reactive using a UV laser or another power source that is similar one layer at a time. The most typical technology by using this method is called stereolithography.
Since 2010, American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) group “ASTM F42 – Additive Production”, made a set of standards that classify the Additive Production procedures into 7 classes according to Standard Language for Additive Production Technologies. These 7 processes are:
- Vat Photopolymerisation
- Material Jetting
- Binder Jetting
- Stuff Extrusion
- Powder Bed Fusion
- Sheet Lamination
- Directed Energy Deposit
Examples & applications of additive manufacturing thechnologies such as 3D printing
Other examples of 3D print would comprise reconstructing body parts and bones in forensic pathology, replicating early artifacts in archaeology, reconstructing fossils in paleontology and reconstructing greatly damaged signs got from crime scene investigations.
3D printing markets
Medical business
As specialists are just starting to make use of 3D printing in more sophisticated ways, the outlook for medical use of 3D printing is evolving at an incredibly rapid pace. Patients all over the world are experiencing improved quality of care through prosthetics and 3D printed implants.
Bio-printing
As of the early year 2000, 3D printing technology has been analyzed by biotech companies and academia for possible usage in tissue engineering application where body organs and body parts are created using the inkjet techniques. The layers of living cells slowly built up to form three dimensional constructions and are deposited on a gel medium. We refer to this field of research together with the term: bio-printing.
Aerospace & aviation businesses
The growth in utilisation of 3D printing in the aviation and aerospace industries can, to get a sizable part, be based on the developments in the metal additive production sector.
Automotive industry and 3d printing
It’s relegated 3d printing technology to low volume prototyping uses, although the automotive industry was among the earliest adopters of 3D printing.
Now the usage of 3D printing in automotive is evolving to functional components which are used in evaluation vehicles, engines, and platforms, from relatively simple notion models for design verification and finish and fit tests. The expectations are that 3D print in the automotive industry will create a combined $1.1 billion dollars by 2019.
Learn more about additive manufacturing technologies on 3dprinterchat.com!
I would love to see all they do with the 3D printer in space! Think of the Appollo mission that had a massive failure and how they were saved using the odds and ends that were in the capsule…Just imagine if they had a 3D printer in the capsule, it would have been fixed in an hour! haha.. I wonder if SLS would even work in space? The “printing liquid” in the container would be so active from the lack of gravity but I wonder if that would even matter since it uses a laser to turn the liquid solid.