The use of 3D printing in the auto industry is set to quintuple over the next five years to a value of $1.25 billion.
The total current value of the car industry’s 3D printing work is about $267 million. But that number is expected to grow to $1.25 billion by 2019, according to data provided to 3D Printing Industry by SmarTech.
Today, according to 3D Printing Industry, companies in the industry spend about $168 million a year on 3D printing hardware and about $99 million on materials.
Additive manufacturing — or 3D printing — is 30 years old this year. Today, it’s found not just in industry but in households, as the price of 3D printers has fallen below US$1,000. Knowing you can print almost anything, not just marks on paper, opens up unlimited opportunities for us to manufacture toys, household appliances and tools in our living rooms.
But there’s more that can be done with 3D printed materials to make them more flexible and more useful: structures that can transform in a pre-programmed way in response to a stimulus. Recently given the popular science name of “4D printing,” perhaps a better way to think about it is that the object transforms over time.
In the future, people with certain vision disorders and even healthy eyed folks will have access to electronic contact lenses that can improve and augment native vision. There are already advancements in that direction, but the challenge of being able to embed tiny electronic components into such a small space may be the biggest hurdle. Now researchers at Princeton University have reported in journal Nano Letters the ability to use 3D printing to produce multi-color LEDs on contact lenses.
Depuis quelques années, l'impression tridimensionnelle - plus couramment appelée impression 3D - suscite un intérêt croissant chez les industriels, les passionnés de technologie et les académiques. Les procédés de production par fabrication additive que le terme englobe sont régulièrement présentés comme une rupture du schéma traditionnel des industries manufacturières, notamment en matière de propriété intellectuelle et de relation entre producteurs, vendeurs et consommateurs sur l'ensemble de la chaîne de valeur produit.
If you believe industry insiders—and a considerable amount of media hype—desktop 3D printers are about to become the proverbial next big thing, as companies like MakerBot, 3D Systems, and Solidoodle find ways to create more reliable, user-friendly printers that consumers and most professional designers can afford.
But while those companies duke it out for market share and a place in workshops, garages, and studios around the world, a Madison, WI-based startup is trying to solve another problem: how to get 3D printers to print in full color at a price point accessible to the mass market.
Les scientifiques de l'Université polytechnique de Tomsk (TPU), en Sibérie, développent actuellement une imprimante 3D qui permettrait, selon eux, d' "imprimer" des éléments nécessaires à la production de sous-marins et de vaisseaux spatiaux.
A 3-D printer can already make a prototype or spare part out of metal or polymer. Researchers at Princeton University have now taken an important step toward expanding the technology’s potential by developing a way to print functioning electronic circuitry out of semiconductors and other materials. They are also refining ways to combine electronics with biocompatible materials and even living tissue, which could pave the way for exotic new implants.
Last spring, the National Football League, the sports performance brand Under Armour, and GE called on researchers, scientists and enthusiasts to find new tools for detecting concussions and protecting football players from traumatic brain injuries.
The partners just announced the first seven winners of the latest stage of the Head Health Challenge. Their solutions range from 3D virtual reality systems designed to detect brain injury to 3D printed “microlattice” materials engineered to reduce the force of the impact and a helmetless training technique. Take a look.
On October 6, a Boeing 747 modified for testing jet engines taxied along a concrete runway on the edge of the Mojave Desert and took off with a brand new engine strapped to its left wing. Although the engine’s maiden flight was short, it made aviation history.
Additive manufacturing (AM), more popularly known as 3D printing, describes a group of technologies used to produce objects through the addition rather than the removal of material. AM was first used commercially in the mid-1980s for the creation of prototypes, models, and visualization tools. More recently, however, advances in printer and materials technology have allowed AM to expand to applications such as tooling and end-user part production.1
