News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
Multiphoton Optics GmbH has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Heidelberg Instruments Mikrotechnik GmbH. The pooling of development capabilities and technologies for producing microstructures further underscores the global importance of research, development and production of direct-writing laser systems “Made in Germany”. The merger also extends the company’s market position in the micro-optics sector.
AMFG, a supplier of MES and Workflow automation software for additive manufacturing, and L’Oréal have partnered to optimize rapid prototyping workflows in its 3D printing lab. As 3D printing volumes increased, L’Oréal decided to invest in a solution that could support this growth and chose AMFG’s software as its workflow management platform.
The Covid-19 pandemic is forcing all social venues – including museums and exhibits – to close their doors to slow down the virus’ diffusion. For the Raffello exhibit, which marks the 500-year anniversary of famous Italian painter’s death, Factum Arte created the spectacular starting point of the exhibition: a rematerialization of Raffaello’s tomb from the Pantheon, with its 19th-century additions removed. The incredibly intricate and beautiful capitels, were both 3D printed and then cast in stone.
Last month, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering and the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine demonstrated a 3D printed microneedle array platform capable of delivering vaccines directly into the skin, with the particular goal of improving COVID-19 vaccine delivery in the developing world. The study was conducted using micro-stereolithography PμSL 3D printing technology developed by Boston Micro Fabrication and is the latest effort in a race to the most precise 3D prints to produce objects used in our macroscopic world.
CERN’s newly proposed EIFFEL space elevator accelerator is eventually going to be the tallest structure on Earth. 3dpbm can exclusively reveal that the 2.5 Km tall structure will be entirely 3D printed using both concrete and metals, which engineers now see as the only possible way to make it structurally sound.
With a story published on April 1st (but we performed all the necessary anti-April Fools checks and can now confirm it), researchers in USC Viterbi’s Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering have revealed a low-cost reusable support method based on a dynamic 3D printing platform which reduces the need for wasteful supports in material extrusion/deposition, vastly improving cost-effectiveness and sustainability for 3D printing.
For agile businesses, development time and time to market are critical when developing products. Prototyping and manufacture using injection molding can be expensive, rigid and slow when it comes to releasing product ranges; so naturally, it is better to start with solutions that are more adaptive and cost-effective.
Population aging is one of Europe’s great challenges in the 21st century. By 2024, 22% of Europeans are expected to be over 65. Patients suffering from chronic joint detop fects or defects in the oral and maxillofacial regions have a significantly reduced quality of life and are continually dependent on health care. The Covid-19 crisis has shown how dangerous chronically overcrowded hospitals and large cohorts of care-dependent and risk-grouped patients can become. Therefore, science and technology must work together to ensure that living longer can be synonymous with living well. INKplant, a project funded by the European Union H2020, was conceived to face this challenge and democratize its new solutions.
Specialists of All-Russia Research Institute of Technical Physics (VNIITF) have developed and manufactured prototypes of lasers with a power of 200, 400, 700 and 1000 W to be used in SLM printers. The development was carried out within the framework of R&D “Lasers”, which is supervised by the integrator “Rusatom – Additive Technologies” (RusAT, an enterprise of TVEL Fuel Company).
As the AM wave continues to grow in Japan, Tokyo-based JEOL released its new JAM-5200EBM electron beam melting metal AM system. The company, which specializes in scientific metrology systems (including electron microscopes) leveraged its know-how of electron microscopes and electron beam lithography systems for semiconductor manufacturing, to develop a new EBM system with higher power, higher density and higher speed.