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<font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Hi Michel,<br>
I mentioned this to my youngest son who has some experience of
this technology. He responded:</font><br>
<br>
'One of the interesting developments is a 3d printer that can make
all its own parts, i.e. you can use one to make another: <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page">http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page</a>
(all the designs are open source, so the idea is that people make
one, improve the design, and make one for someone else).
<br>
<br>
Some of the printers can use recycled plastic, you grate up a few
old plastic bottles and feed them into a hopper.
<br>
<br>
The coming battles over 'intellectual property' are going to make to
current ones about movies and music seem minor.� I can already take
a few photos of an object, model it accurately in a computer, get it
prototyped and have a good copy without ever touching the
original.'� <br>
<br>
Denis<br>
<br>
On 15/02/2011 12:00, Michel Bauwens wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTikxd057pxadb4ZG4BFXn6wjsGH=ZME-cU8dXtDu@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">From: Eugen Leitl <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
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 moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:tt@postbiota.org"
target="_blank">tt@postbiota.org</a><br>
�<br>
�<br>
�<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
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>
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