A new technology for 3-D-printing metal parts could be a cheaper and more versatile alternative to common industrial metalworking techniques. It also opens the door to new kinds of parts with unique properties that arise from the precise combination of multiple metals. Possible applications include structural parts for things like car or airplane bodies, as well as components of engines, electrical devices, or other machines.
El fabricante de aviones Boeing y la aerolínea alemana Lufthansa se han puesto manos a la obra en busca de una solución que les permita reducir los altos costes asociados al mantenimiento y reparación de sus aeronaves. Ambas compañías llevan meses trabajando, junto a otros socios de Europa y EEUU, en el proyecto europeo RepAir, cuyo objetivo último es lograr reparar los aviones utilizando sistemas de fabricación aditiva, popularmente conocida como impresión 3D.
The latest-generation Boeing 737 MAX, powered by a pair of advanced LEAP-1B engines, made its maiden flight today in Seattle. The flight lasted 2 hours and 47 minutes. “The flight was a success,” said Captain Ed Wilson, chief pilot for the 737 MAX program. “The 737 MAX just felt right in flight, giving us complete confidence that this airplane will meet our customers’ expectations.”
Las herramientas de fabricación digital van adquiriendo cada vez más peso en los centros educativos-formativos de toda Euskadi, pero también empiezan a ser más accesibles a los usuarios y emprendedores a través de laboratorios de creación o tiendas especializadas a pie de calle. La autofabricación o el ‘Do it yourself’ está ya al alcance de cualquier persona.
Spend a minute or two on the Internet, and you’ll find 3D printing can be used to build all sorts of things: automobile parts and prototypes, prosthetic ears, stem cells, submachine guns, eyeglasses, and even desserts customized to one’s nutritional requirements.
But what about building construction? Why couldn’t these same methods be adapted to build actual-scale civil structures—single-family homes, commercial buildings, even large settlements—with greater speed and efficiency?
A House in 20 Hours. That was just what Behrokh Khoshnevis says he envisioned when developing Contour Crafting (CC), a 3D concrete-extruding printer that can be used to build a single 2,500-square-foot house in about 20 hours.
The promise of additive manufacturing or 3-D printing—faster and cheaper manufacturing of more customizable parts—is limited by the palette of printable materials, which until now has included mainly polymers and some metals. Now we can add ceramics, an important class of materials whose high strength and resistance to heat, chemical degradation, and friction make them attractive for use in the military and the aerospace industries for everything from exterior airplane parts to small components for rockets.
We can now add radar technology to the growing list of odd but useful things that can be made with 3-D printing.
Printing the electronics in sophisticated radar systems onto sheets of plastic would make the systems both cheaper and more versatile. This would have obvious military benefits but also many potential civilian applications, such as weather-monitoring radar and self-driving vehicles. One major challenge in printing electronics capable of dealing with high-frequency radio waves is developing novel “inks” with the right electrical properties.
We dump around 8 million tons of plastic trash in the oceans each year, and that might quadruple in a decade. Now, as giant ocean cleanup devices start to sweep through the water in an attempt to collect some of that plastic, a handful of companies are figuring out how to use it to make new products—like shoes.
Expectations are high for 3-D printing as the pace of innovation hits hyper drive. Rapid prototyping, which has been the industry’s center of gravity, isn’t enough to change the game. The industry needs to pivot to printing fully functional and finished products with speed and quality. How and when will the industry advance and move beyond prototyping? This series of articles and interviews examine the innovations that are taking the industry beyond its success in prototyping.
