3D Printing

3D printing, or additive manufacturing, has advanced rapidly in recent years, allowing companies to quickly produce working prototypes and home hobbyists to produce various bits and bobs for the home. While plastic remains the dominant printing material, additive manufacturing with materials including metal, cement and even glass, enables the production of everything from tiny screws to engine components to entire houses ... and it's only just getting started.

3D Printing

Greek city locals help design street furniture 3D-printed from their plastic waste

Paul Ridden January 17, 2019

Print Your City, which turned plastic waste into street furniture, has gone from early prototypes to city scale project with the launch of a Zero Waste Lab in Thessaloniki, Greece, where locals can take their plastic waste and have it turned into urban furniture.

New Raw's robotic arm 3D printer transforming plastic waste into street furniture at the Zero Waste ...

3D Printing Audio available

MIT scientists can now shrink 3D objects down to one thousandth of the size

David Nield December 16, 2018

It sounds like a scene from Ant-Man, but this is very much real life: scientists at MIT have devised a super shrinking system that can produce 3D nanoscale versions of much larger, custom-made objects – reducing them to around one thousandth the size of the originals.

Using a new technique, scientists can shrink structures down to the nanoscale

3D Printing Audio available

Titanium 3D-printed wheel provides a glimpse of the future

Ben Coxworth November 23, 2018

In a demonstration of what could be commercially possible within the near future, HRE Wheels recently teamed up with GE Additive’s AddWorks team to create the first-ever titanium wheel to be 3D-printed via Electron Beam Melting. The process is said to be more efficient than traditional machining.

A custom center piece was used to join the HRE3D+ wheel's five main sections together

3D Printing Audio available

BigRep rolls out 3D-printed electric motorcycle prototype

Paul Ridden November 20, 2018

Germany's large-scale 3D printing firm, BigRep, has debuted a number of automotive and e-mobility prototypes at this year's formnext additive manufacturing exhibition, including the world's first 3D-printed working electric motorcycle.

Everything on the Nera prototype except the electrical components was 3D-printed

3D Printing Audio available

Pulped paper replaces plastic as the raw material for this 3D printer

Paul Ridden November 8, 2018

With a few notable exceptions, the majority of objects removed from a 3D printer bed are fashioned with plastic. But plastic has a nasty habit of ruining our environment at the end of its useful life. Beer Holthuis has built a 3D printer that extrudes paper pulp to build three-dimensional objects.

When objects produced by the Paper Pulp Printer are no longer needed, they can be recycled ...

3D Printing

New 3D-printed museum piece is mammoth in scale

Ben Coxworth October 30, 2018

Over the past several years, Belgian manufacturing firm Materialise has 3D-printed items such as running shoes, a dress and a wheelchair. Now, the company has created something a little larger – a complete wooly mammoth skeleton.

The fully-assembled Mammoth of Lier replica

3D Printing

3D-printed batteries make for some interesting possibilities

Ben Coxworth October 18, 2018

Electronic devices typically have to be manufactured with existing rectangular or cylindrical batteries in mind – but what might be possible if that weren't the case? Scientists recently created proof-of-concept 3D-printed batteries, paving the way for batteries that could be made in any shape.

The 3D-printed battery in this bracelet kept the LED lit for approximately one minute

3D Printing

PrinTracker tech could match sketchy objects to 3D printers that made them

Ben Coxworth October 16, 2018

Although 3D printers are able to produce some amazing objects, they can also crank out counterfeit goods, illegal firearms, and other not-so-nice creations. Soon, if someone is suspected of making such items, it could be possible to match the objects to that person's printer.

The system establishes a "fingerprint" for any one printer, based on a combination of factors

3D Printing Audio available

US nuclear carriers to get first 3D-printed part

David Szondy October 14, 2018

Additive manufacturing is taking to the seas with the first 3D-printed part being cleared for installation aboard a US Navy nuclear aircraft carrier. The prototype piping assembly will be installed on the USS Harry S. Truman in 2019, where it will be subjected to 12 months of operational testing.

The 3D-printed valve will be installed on the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75)

3D Printing

Robots collaborate on 3D-printing concrete structures

Ben Coxworth October 2, 2018

Although we've already seen 3D printers that can create full-size concrete structures, the huge size of the devices could make them difficult to install at construction sites. Singaporean scientists are developing an alternative, in the form of mobile robots that work together to do the job.

The NTU team with the two robots and the structure that they built