At this year’s Hannover Messe, tech giant Siemens revealed plans to develop a web-based collaborative platform for on-demand product design and 3D printing. Available to manufacturers and buyers worldwide, the new system will use Siemens product lifecycle management software to share additive manufacturing expertise...
German plastics manufacturer igus demonstrates the advantages of 3D printing at this year’s Hannover Messe. The first visitor to deliver a metal wear part to their stand each morning will walk away at the end of the day with a replacement part made of tribo-polymer. Company representatives 3D prints a mold of the part...
Russian start-up Apis Cor used innovative technology to 3D print a concrete house in 24 hours. Its large-scale radial printer produced the 38 m2 structure directly on site, eliminating the need to transport prefab elements from a factory. The printer arm can cover a circular area of 132 meters across. Just two...
Offering previously unimaginable complex designs, additive manufacturing holds the promise of the next industrial revolution. But for mass production, speed needs to improve. The production floor of the future will be strangely quiet. No hissing welder machines, clanging hammers or buzzing milling machines. Instead,...
Rather than sticking with traditional plastics, industrial 3D printing is pushing technological boundaries to work with liquid metal, silicone and even glass. For all the benefits of 3D printing and additive manufacturing, industrial use is frequently restricted to rapid prototyping rather than manufacturing due to...
After years of tests, researchers at the University of Illinois have just revealed a recipe for making your own bio-bots. The team explains each step of the 3D printing process, from the skeleton to the tissue and muscle actuator, as well as the tools required. Only eight days are needed to print these muscle-powered...
Industrial Machines and Equipment / Machine-Tools / Materials - Tools - Components / Production Machines
The German industrial mastodon has successfully made 3D printed power generation gas turbine blades using a metal-based powder consisting of high-performance polycrystalline nickel superalloy. The goal was 13,000 revolutions per minute at temperatures above 1250°C, for what is already being called a “breakthrough” by...
The adoption of additive manufacturing technology has accelerated in recent years thanks to advances in material science and design software. Use is growing in aeronautics and the automotive sector, and the nuclear industry is pushing into the game. In a December 2016 report on additive manufacturing, Gartner...
Industrial Machines and Equipment / Machine-Tools / Materials - Tools - Components / Printing, Marking and Engraving
At the 2015 Euromold, DirectIndustry e-magazine met with 3D Ceram, a French company specializing in the 3D printing of ceramic objects. We subsequently discovered that ceramics could be made with lasers more rapidly than by the traditional process (find our article here). Two years later, CEO Richard Gaignon tells us...
Robotic arms are already an integral part of mainstream industry, but the technology might also have a future in 3D printing. For example, Stratasys recently showcased new demonstrators that rely on industrial robotic arms. The Infinite-Build 3D demonstrator addresses the requirements of aerospace, automotive and...
