From: Eugen Leitl <<a href="mailto:eugen@leitl.org" target="_blank">eugen@leitl.org</a>><br>
Date: Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 11:23 AM<br>
Subject: [tt] Three-dimensional printing from digital designs will
transform<br>
manufacturing and allow more people to start making things<br>
To: <a href="mailto:tt@postbiota.org" target="_blank">tt@postbiota.org</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br><a href="http://www.economist.com/node/18114221?story_id=18114221&CFID=162367227&CFTOKEN=74435751" target="_blank">http://www.economist.com/node/18114221?story_id=18114221&CFID=162367227&CFTOKEN=74435751</a><br>
<br>
The printed world<br>
<br>
Three-dimensional printing from digital designs will transform
manufacturing<br>
and allow more people to start making things 3D printing<br>
<br>
Feb 10th 2011 | FILTON | from PRINT EDITION<br>
<br>
FILTON, just outside Bristol, is where Britain’s fleet of Concorde<br>
supersonic<br>
airliners was built. In a building near a wind tunnel on the same
sprawling<br>
site, something even more remarkable is being created. Little by little a<br>
machine is “printing” a complex titanium landing-gear bracket, about the<br>
size<br>
of a shoe, which normally would have to be laboriously hewn from a solid<br>
block of metal. Brackets are only the beginning. The researchers at
Filton<br>
have a much bigger ambition: to print the entire wing of an airliner.<br>
<br>
Far-fetched as this may seem, many other people are using
three-dimensional<br>
printing technology to create similarly remarkable things. These include<br>
medical implants, jewellery, football boots designed for individual
feet,<br>
lampshades, racing-car parts, solid-state batteries and customised
mobile<br>
phones. Some are even making mechanical devices. At the Massachusetts<br>
Institute of Technology (MIT), Peter Schmitt, a PhD student, has been<br>
printing something that resembles the workings of a grandfather clock.
It<br>
took him a few attempts to get right, but eventually he removed the
plastic<br>
clock from a 3D printer, hung it on the wall and pulled down the<br>
counterweight. It started ticking.<br>
<br>
Engineers and designers have been using 3D printers for more than a
decade,<br>
but mostly to make prototypes quickly and cheaply before they embark on
the<br>
expensive business of tooling up a factory to produce the real thing. As
3D<br>
printers have become more capable and able to work with a broader range
of<br>
materials, including production-grade plastics and metals, the machines
are<br>
increasingly being used to make final products too. More than 20% of the<br>
output of 3D printers is now final products rather than prototypes,<br>
according<br>
to Terry Wohlers, who runs a research firm specialising in the field. He<br>
predicts that this will rise to 50% by 2020. Related topics<br>
<br>
Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br>
<br>
Using 3D printers as production tools has become known in industry as<br>
“additive” manufacturing (as opposed to the old, “subtractive” business
of<br>
cutting, drilling and bashing metal). The additive process requires less
raw<br>
material and, because software drives 3D printers, each item can be made<br>
differently without costly retooling. The printers can also produce<br>
ready-made objects that require less assembly and things that
traditional<br>
methods would struggle with—such as the glove pictured above, made by
Within<br>
Technologies, a London company. It can be printed in nylon, stainless
steel<br>
or titanium.<br>
<br>
Click to manufacture<br>
<br>
The printing of parts and products has the potential to transform<br>
manufacturing because it lowers the costs and risks. No longer does a<br>
producer have to make thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of items to<br>
recover his fixed costs. In a world where economies of scale do not
matter<br>
any more, mass-manufacturing identical items may not be necessary or<br>
appropriate, especially as 3D printing allows for a great deal of<br>
customisation. Indeed, in the future some see consumers downloading
products<br>
as they do digital music and printing them out at home, or at a local 3D<br>
production centre, having tweaked the designs to their own tastes. That
is<br>
probably a faraway dream. Nevertheless, a new industrial revolution may
be<br>
on<br>
the way.<br>
<br>
Printing in 3D may seem bizarre. In fact it is similar to clicking on
the<br>
print button on a computer screen and sending a digital file, say a
letter,<br>
to an inkjet printer. The difference is that the “ink” in a 3D printer
is a<br>
material which is deposited in successive, thin layers until a solid
object<br>
emerges.<br>
<br>
The layers are defined by software that takes a series of digital slices<br>
through a computer-aided design. Descriptions of the slices are then
sent to<br>
the 3D printer to construct the respective layers. They are then put<br>
together<br>
in a number of ways. Powder can be spread onto a tray and then
solidified in<br>
the required pattern with a squirt of a liquid binder or by sintering it<br>
with<br>
a laser or an electron beam. Some machines deposit filaments of molten<br>
plastic. However it is achieved, after each layer is complete the build
tray<br>
is lowered by a fraction of a millimetre and the next layer is added.
And<br>
when you’re happy, click print<br>
<br>
The researchers at Filton began using 3D printers to produce prototype
parts<br>
for wind-tunnel testing. The group is part of EADS Innovation Works, the<br>
research arm of EADS, a European defence and aerospace group best known
for<br>
building Airbuses. Prototype parts tend to be very expensive to make as<br>
one-offs by conventional means. Because their 3D printers could do the
job<br>
more efficiently, the researchers’ thoughts turned to manufacturing<br>
components directly.<br>
<br>
Aircraft-makers have already replaced a lot of the metal in the
structure of<br>
planes with lightweight carbon-fibre composites. But even a small
airliner<br>
still contains several tonnes of costly aerospace-grade titanium. These<br>
parts<br>
have usually been machined from solid billets, which can result in 90%
of<br>
the<br>
material being cut away. This swarf is no longer of any use for making<br>
aircraft.<br>
<br>
To make the same part with additive manufacturing, EADS starts with a<br>
titanium powder. The firm’s 3D printers spread a layer about 20-30
microns<br>
(0.02-0.03mm) thick onto a tray where it is fused by lasers or an
electron<br>
beam. Any surplus powder can be reused. Some objects may need a little<br>
machining to finish, but they still require only 10% of the raw material<br>
that<br>
would otherwise be needed. Moreover, the process uses less energy than a<br>
conventional factory. It is sometimes faster, too.<br>
<br>
There are other important benefits. Most metal and plastic parts are<br>
designed<br>
to be manufactured, which means they can be clunky and contain material<br>
surplus to the part’s function but necessary for making it. This is not
true<br>
of 3D printing. “You only put material where you need to have material,”<br>
says<br>
Andy Hawkins, lead engineer on the EADS project. The parts his team is<br>
making<br>
are more svelte, even elegant. This is because without manufacturing<br>
constraints they can be better optimised for their purpose. Compared
with a<br>
machined part, the printed one is some 60% lighter but still as sturdy.<br>
<br>
Form follows function<br>
<br>
Lightness is critical in making aircraft. A reduction of 1kg in the
weight<br>
of<br>
an airliner will save around $3,000-worth of fuel a year and by the same<br>
token cut carbon-dioxide emissions. Additive manufacturing could thus
help<br>
build greener aircraft—especially if all the 1,000 or so titanium parts
in<br>
an<br>
airliner can be printed. Although the size of printable parts is limited
for<br>
now by the size of 3D printers, the EADS group believes that bigger
systems<br>
are possible, including one that could fit on the 35-metre-long gantry
used<br>
to build composite airliner wings. This would allow titanium components
to<br>
be<br>
printed directly onto the structure of the wing.<br>
<br>
Many believe that the enhanced performance of additively manufactured
items<br>
will be the most important factor in driving the technology forward. It<br>
certainly is for MIT’s Mr Schmitt, whose interest lies in “original<br>
machines”. These are devices not constructed from a collection of<br>
prefabricated parts, but created in a form that flows from the intention
of<br>
the design. If that sounds a bit arty, it is: Mr Schmitt is a former art<br>
student from Germany who used to cadge time on factory lathes and
milling<br>
machines to make mechanised sculptures. He is now working on novel servo<br>
mechanisms, the basic building blocks for robots. Custom-made servos
cost<br>
many times the price of off-the-shelf ones. Mr Schmitt says it should be<br>
possible for a robot builder to specify what a servo needs to do, rather<br>
than<br>
how it needs to be made, and send that information to a 3D printer, and
for<br>
the machine’s software to know how to produce it at a low cost. “This
makes<br>
manufacturing more accessible,” says Mr Schmitt.<br>
<br>
The idea of the 3D printer determining the form of the items it produces<br>
intrigues Neri Oxman, an architect and designer who heads a research
group<br>
examining new ways to make things at MIT’s Media Lab. She is building a<br>
printer to explore how new designs could be produced. Dr Oxman believes
the<br>
design and construction of objects could be transformed using principles<br>
inspired by nature, resulting in shapes that are impossible to build
without<br>
additive manufacturing. She has made items from sculpture to body armour
and<br>
is even looking at buildings, erected with computer-guided nozzles that<br>
deposit successive layers of concrete.<br>
<br>
Some 3D systems allow the properties and internal structure of the
material<br>
being printed to be varied. This year, for instance, Within Technologies<br>
expects to begin offering titanium medical implants with features that<br>
resemble bone. The company’s femur implant is dense where stiffness and<br>
strength is required, but it also has strong lattice structures which
would<br>
encourage the growth of bone onto the implant. Such implants are more
likely<br>
to stay put than conventional ones.<br>
<br>
Working at such a fine level of internal detail allows the stiffness and<br>
flexibility of an object to be determined at any point, says Siavash<br>
Mahdavi,<br>
the chief executive of Within Technologies. Dr Mahdavi is working on
other<br>
lattice structures, including aerodynamic body parts for racing cars and<br>
special insoles for a firm that hopes to make the world’s most
comfortable<br>
stiletto-heeled shoes.<br>
<br>
Digital Forming, a related company (where Dr Mahdavi is chief technology<br>
officer), uses 3D design software to help consumers customise
mass-produced<br>
products. For example, it is offering a service to mobile-phone
companies in<br>
which subscribers can go online to change the shape, colour and other<br>
features of the case of their new phone. The software keeps the user
within<br>
the bounds of the achievable. Once the design is submitted the casing is<br>
printed. Lisa Harouni, the company’s managing director, says the process<br>
could be applied to almost any consumer product, from jewellery to<br>
furniture.<br>
“I don’t have any doubt that this technology will change the way we<br>
manufacture things,” she says.<br>
<br>
Other services allow individuals to upload their own designs and have
them<br>
printed. Shapeways, a New York-based firm spun out of Philips, a Dutch<br>
electronics company, last year, offers personalised 3D production, or
“mass<br>
customisation”, as Peter Weijmarshausen, its chief executive, describes
it.<br>
Shapeways prints more than 10,000 unique products every month from
materials<br>
that range from stainless steel to glass, plastics and sandstone.
Customers<br>
include individuals and shopkeepers, many ordering jewellery, gifts and<br>
gadgets to sell in their stores.<br>
<br>
EOS, a German supplier of laser-sintering 3D printers, says they are
already<br>
being used to make plastic and metal production parts by carmakers,<br>
aerospace<br>
firms and consumer-products companies. And by dentists: up to 450 dental<br>
crowns, each tailored for an individual patient, can be manufactured in
one<br>
go in a day by a single machine, says EOS. Some craft producers of
crowns<br>
would do well to manage a dozen a day. As an engineering exercise, EOS
also<br>
printed the parts for a violin using a high-performance industrial
polymer,<br>
had it assembled by a professional violin-maker and played by a concert<br>
violinist.<br>
<br>
Both EOS and Stratasys, a company based in Minneapolis which makes 3D<br>
printers that employ plastic-deposition technology, use their own
machines<br>
to<br>
print parts that are, in turn, used to build more printers. Stratasys is<br>
even<br>
trying to print a car, or at least the body of one, for Kor Ecologic, a<br>
company in Winnipeg, whose boss, Jim Kor, is developing an
electric-hybrid<br>
vehicle called Urbee. Jim Kor’s printed the model. Next, the car<br>
<br>
Making low-volume, high-value and customised components is all very
well,<br>
but<br>
could additive manufacturing really compete with mass-production
techniques<br>
that have been honed for over a century? Established techniques are
unlikely<br>
to be swept away, but it is already clear that the factories of the
future<br>
will have 3D printers working alongside milling machines, presses,
foundries<br>
and plastic injection-moulding equipment, and taking on an increasing
amount<br>
of the work done by those machines.<br>
<br>
Morris Technologies, based in Cincinnati, was one of the first companies
to<br>
invest heavily in additive manufacturing for the engineering and
production<br>
services it offers to companies. Its first intention was to make
prototypes<br>
quickly, but by 2007 the company says it realised “a new industry was
being<br>
born” and so it set up another firm, Rapid Quality Manufacturing, to<br>
concentrate on the additive manufacturing of higher volumes of
production<br>
parts. It says many small and medium-sized components can be turned from<br>
computer designs into production-quality metal parts in hours or days,<br>
against days or weeks using traditional processes. And the printers can<br>
build<br>
unattended, 24 hours a day.<br>
<br>
Neil Hopkinson has no doubts that 3D printing will compete with mass<br>
manufacturing in many areas. His team at Loughborough University has<br>
invented<br>
a high-speed sintering system. It uses inkjet print-heads to deposit<br>
infra-red-absorbing ink on layers of polymer powder which are fused into<br>
solid shapes with infra-red heating. Among other projects, the group is<br>
examining the potential for making plastic buckles for Burton
Snowboards, a<br>
leading American producer of winter-sports equipment. Such items are<br>
typically produced by plastic injection-moulding. Dr Hopkinson says his<br>
process can make them for ten pence (16 cents) each, which is highly<br>
competitive with injection-moulding. Moreover, the designs could easily
be<br>
changed without Burton incurring high retooling costs.<br>
<br>
Predicting how quickly additive manufacturing will be taken up by
industry<br>
is<br>
difficult, adds Dr Hopkinson. That is not necessarily because of the<br>
conservative nature of manufacturers, but rather because some processes
have<br>
already moved surprisingly fast. Only a few years ago making decorative<br>
lampshades with 3D printers seemed to be a highly unlikely business, but
it<br>
has become an industry with many competing firms and sales volumes in
the<br>
thousands.<br>
<br>
Dr Hopkinson thinks Loughborough’s process is already competitive with<br>
injection-moulding at production runs of around 1,000 items. With
further<br>
development he expects that within five years it would be competitive in<br>
runs<br>
of tens if not hundreds of thousands. Once 3D printing machines are able
to<br>
crank out products in such numbers, then more manufacturers will look to<br>
adopt the technology.<br>
<br>
Will Sillar of Legerwood, a British firm of consultants, expects to see
the<br>
emergence of what he calls the “digital production plant”: firms will no<br>
longer need so much capital tied up in tooling costs, work-in-progress
and<br>
raw materials, he says. Moreover, the time to take a digital design from<br>
concept to production will drop, he believes, by as much as 50-80%. The<br>
ability to overcome production constraints and make new things will
combine<br>
with improvements to the technology and greater mechanisation to make 3D<br>
printing more mainstream. <br clear="all"><br>-- <br>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a> - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br>
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