January 2, 2013. Copyright 2013, Graphic News. All rights reserved

3D printing set to hit mainstream

LONDON, January 2, Graphic News: Every so often a new technology alters the world in a profound way: the printing press, internal combustion engine, photography, the personal computer and laser printer -- the latter two leading to the revolutionary industry of desktop publishing in the late 1980s.

Now, after some 20 years of development, the era of desktop 3D printing is here.

Create a concept using off-the-shelf 3D design software and hit Print. Watch as a sleek, desktop-sized 3D printer extrudes ultra-thin layers of plastic, each melting into the one below, to fabricate a physical object -- so-called additive manufacturing. Refine or modify the design and reprint until the prototype is complete.

In the same way that desktop publishers send final designs to a bureau for output on high-resolution imagesetters, 3D files can be uploaded to a commercial fabricator or direct digital manufacturer (DDM) that uses industrial grade printers. While desktop 3D printers such as Makerbot's Replicator 2 can generate polymer layers as thin as 0.1mm (100 microns, 0.0039 of an inch) -- about the thickness of a sheet of photocopy paper -- DDM technologies offer build-layer thickness up to three times finer. In addition, DDM technologies can print in diverse materials ranging from chocolate or wax to sand, concrete, nylon, glass, ceramics, stainless steel, titanium, aluminium and various alloys including cobalt chrome.

Aerospace giant Boeing has already proved a pioneer by using 3D printing to make more than 22,000 parts used on aircraft flying today. Audi and Ford are prototyping auto components, and in the dentist's surgery many custom dental fittings are now 3D printed.

In the United States the federally funded National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII) is a $30 million pilot institute aimed at boosting 3D printing's use in manufacturing.

"If you're making 10,000,000 trash cans for sale at Wal-Mart, then no -- you might prototype those things with 3D printing but you won't be manufacturing them that way," Terry Wohlers, a member of the NAMII executive board told TechNewsDaily. "If you're making parts for 50 to 100 military aircraft, then it is a perfect fit."

Will 3D printing be the next industrial revolution? It's early days but this is certainly an innovation to watch.
/ENDS