News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
Each year, Good Design Australia presents prizes to the most innovative designs in various disciplines. This year, the 61st annual Australian Good Design Awards presented the highest award—the Good Design Award of the Year—to medtech company Inventia for its Rastrum 3D bioprinter, which is designed for advancing cancer treatments.
A collaboration between Digital Building Technologies and the Origen Festival in Riom, Switzerland, the installation Concrete Choreography consists of nine, individually designed, 2.7m tall columns. Each column is concrete 3D printed at full height in 2.5 hours with the process developed at ETH Zurich with the support of NCCR DFAB.
Despite the many advances in Laser Powder Bed Fusion technology in recent years—including multi-laser capabilities and even support-free builds—powder bed fusion has remained limited by certain factors, namely, consistency. In fact, speaking to many people across the industry, consistency and reliability are two critical points that keep coming up as hurdles to the full industrialization of AM.
Swedish company Sandvik has just announced it has acquired a 30% stake in Beam-IT, an Italy-based provider of metal additive manufacturing services and 3D printed end-use components for a range of industries, including automotive, energy and aerospace.
German chemical group WACKER is preparing to introduce a new and improved version of its ACEO 3D printing technology for silicone rubber at the upcoming K 2019 International Trade Fair for Plastics and Rubber. The new 3D printer—the ACEO Imagine Series K2—integrates a range of new features and capabilities, including printing up to four different silicone materials simultaneously.
Whilst 3D printing may not be new technology, the uptake of 3D printing for surgical applications is growing and offering novel, creative opportunities for personalized care. 3D printing technologies have been making their mark in medicine in many different areas, from pharmaceutical design to personalized, bioresorbable implants. Facilitating surgical teams both inside and outside the operating room, the adoption of 3D printing in surgery solutions is on the rise and is well positioned to be a fundamental instrument in the operating room of the future.
Though you may know him best as the founder of NY-based 3D design firm Studio Bitonti, Francis Bitonti has a much wider professional repertoire, including a research position at the Digital Arts and Humanities Research Center at Pratt Institute and a teaching job at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s School of Architecture, USA. Bitonti’s name is now also emblazoned across the cover of a newly published book, entitled 3D Printing Design: Additive Manufacturing and the Materials Revolution.
In March 2018, so just a little over a year ago, Desktop Metal received funding for $65M in an investment round led by Ford Motors. Although that news did not make huge headlines, the deal is now starting to bear fruits as Ford just showed off how they have been using several Desktop Metal Studio systems for prototyping and are now implementing Desktop Metal’s Production system for, well, part production.
Briggs Automotive Company (BAC) has officially launched the all-new Mono R – a higher-performance, lighter and more advanced new generation of the iconic Mono. Mono R features parts 3D printed using DSM filaments and resins and offers world-beating performance on the road and track.
Humans have long wanted to put a person on Mars, and today many steps towards achieving this decades-old goal are being taken. Things like housing, food, construction materials and medical treatments will be necessary in order for humans to exist on Mars, and researchers from space agencies and companies around the world are coming up with novel solutions to address these basic issues. NASA, for instance, recently awarded AI SpaceFactory first place in its 3D Printed Habitat Challenge for developing a 3D printed housing solution that could be viable on Mars or the Moon.