Skip to main content

3D printing - What's the big buzz these days?

Did you know?



Nike, the footwear giant, used 3D printing to prototype and manufacture the 2012 Vapor Laser Talon football shoe for players of American football.








Nowadays, companies are printing eyewear with customer’s on-demand custom fit and styling.





In 2014, the Swedish supercar manufacturer, Koenigsegg, announced the One:1 which utilized many components that were 3D printed like side-mirror internals, air ducts, titanium exhaust components, and complete turbocharger assemblies.






Olaf Diegel, a Swedish Professor Develops World’s First 3D-Printed All-Aluminium Electric Guitar and names it ‘Heavy Metal’.






A titanium pelvis was successfully implanted into a British patient, a titanium lower jaw transplanted to a Belgian patient and a plastic tracheal splint into an American infant all of which were 3D printed.

Sounds amazing? Once you know the wide array of applications of 3D printing, you’ll start to realize its potential.

So what exactly is 3D printing?

According to Wikipedia, “3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing (AM), refers to processes used to synthesize a three-dimensional object in which successive layers of material are formed under computer control to create an object.”

Simply put in words, you can print 3D objects with just a simple office printer!
These objects can be created with a computer-aided design (CAD) software, through a 3D scanner, or simply with a plain digital camera and photogrammetry software. The entire process can broadly be classified into 3 steps:
  • Modeling – similar to visualizing and sculpting. A digital model is made on basis of data of the structure to be made.
  • Printing - There are several ways to print the desired object. They mainly differ in the way layers are build to create them. Some methods use melting or softening material to produce the layers. Stereolithography (SLA), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) and Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) are the most common technologies using this way of 3D printing. 
  • Finishing - All of the commercialized metal 3D printers involve cutting the metal component off the metal substrate after deposition and giving the final touches.            

So why mention 3D printing in a blog dedicated to Aluminium?

Aluminium can be used a variety of objects including functional parts, automobile spare parts, and jewelry. Aluminium is inherently lightweight and durable. Its high strength to weight ratio makes it a suitable material of choice, predominantly in aerospace and automotive industries. It can handle a huge weight without compromising its integrity in its application. Already, Designers have been using the metal to 3D print various objects such as gears and toys, drone parts and tools, such as bottle openers, multi-tools and camera rigs, protective casing for laptops, phones, and sports equipment.

 

The technique used to build a design with aluminium is called Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS). This means that a fine metal powder is used to build the model layer by layer. The roller of the 3D printer spreads out a very fine layer of Aluminium powder. A laser beam then sinters and solidifies the areas that are part of your design. After this, a new layer of powder is rolled out and sintered at the correct spots.

Aluminium 3D printer

Aluminium alloys like AlSi10Mg are relatively strong. They are also hard enough to be used for a variety of components in motor racing, automotive industry and general engineering. Historically, AlSi10Mg has found a niche among lightweight and thin walled casting parts or any casted and geometrically complex components subjected to moderate loads.

With rapid strides in technology, designers and fabricators are already trying to create a value for aluminium in diverse sectors. There’s no limit to the imagination of 3D printing applications in the future with aluminium or other durable metals in the future.


For more on 3D printing, check out these links:
http://3dprinting.com/what-is-3d-printing/
http://alcoa.p1.inter.alcoa.com/global/en/news/news_detail.asp?pageID=20160706000340en&newsYear=2016
http://aluminiuminsider.com/swedish-professor-develops-worlds-first-3d-printed-all-aluminium-electric-guitar/
http://blog.grabcad.com/blog/2016/06/30/3d-printing-high-quality-parts-in-aluminium-alloy/


Labels:

Comments

  1. Emma Megan17 June 2020 at 10:43


    One of my best buddies recommended this website and I owe it to her. She helped me to find this nice website. I appreciate your nice work. Keep continuing helping others. I will refer this site to other people like my best buddy. Thanks.
    Hug & blesses!
    Click this post to read more.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Most read articles

Aluminium in guitars – It's all music to our ears

Think of a guitar and the classic wooden version comes to mind. There are hundreds of types and they come in all shapes and sizes. Some passionate players even go for custom made guitars just to suit their movements and taste. The simple guitar is still evolving with newer uses of the instruments in concerts and other forms of music. The use of wood in the body and the neck of a guitar is not going to cease in a long time. However, the use of other selected materials by modern guitar manufacturers has significantly improved the sound quality and handling of the guitars. “Manufacturers were making custom guitars from solid billeted aluminum. I was still in graduate school and couldn’t afford such instruments. So I decided to make a competitively priced guitar. Instead of wood or plastic, I opted to use 0.080-in. aircraft-grade aluminum sheet metal because of its quality and durability,” says the then-future CEO of Normandy Guitars. Aluminium Guitar The use of Alumin...
82 comments
Read more

Aluminium extrusions - The ultimate value addition of Aluminium downstream

From simple paper clips to complex pieces used in advanced technology, aluminium extrusions are created in various shapes and sizes for value added end use utilizations. The computer you are using right now contains at least one aluminium profile in the form of a heat sink. This takes advantage of aluminium’s excellent thermal conductivity, unique anodising capability and freedom of design to keep your computer’s processor cool. Different cross sections of extrusions Extrusion is a process used to create objects of a fixed cross-sectional profile. A special tool called a ‘die’ is used to create these extrusions by cutting or shaping the material with the help of a press. These dies are customized to create the wanted design. The process involves the pressing of a pre-heated solid cylinder of aluminium (billet) which is forced through the die opening. The billets are heated to a temperature range of 350 – 500 degrees Celsius. Aluminium does not glow when heated ye...
36 comments
Read more

The choice is clear - Aluminium body for high end smartphones

A lot of phone companies are trying to build slim and sturdy phones for the ever growing market of steroid enhanced hardware capabilities. With phone manufacturers stuffing more RAM and precision cameras in the modern phones, the weight and robustness of the frames becomes all the more important. Today, some manufactures prefer a fiber body to reduce the overall weight in comparison to metal bodies. However, there’s something which still draws a larger advocacy of using aluminium bodies instead of a plastic or fiber. In 2007, Apple CEO Steve Jobs penned an open letter highlighting changes to the company's environmental policy in hopes of achieving "a greener Apple." In the letter, Jobs specifically noted the Mac maker's adoption of aircraft-grade aluminum in order to improve recycling uptake. Apart from the cost reduction implications, Apple is strongly in favor of aluminium usage in all its products for improving its year on year recycling capabilities with...
20 comments
Read more

Aluminium vs. Steel - (1) The changing tides in the automotive sector

To Steel or not to Steel… That is the question. To Aluminium… This might be the answer. The automobile industry is the one constantly shifting tides in technology and design to achieve perfection and quality. Everything is done with precision to maximise the output from the machines with as few resources as possible. After all, this is necessary as natural resources are limited and so are the resources which people can spare for an economical, ergonomic and environment-friendly vehicle of personal transportation. Moreover, safety is an important issue that the engineers keep at priority as people’s lives are at stake. Aluminium body is the preferred material in sports cars With car manufacturers around the world trying to pack in more punch with their offerings, the fight for better fuel efficiency and safety of the automobiles has intensified. With cutting edge designing and engineering capabilities, car manufacturers have carefully selected the materials and technolog...
22 comments
Read more

Did we just chance upon a source for clean fuel powered by water & aluminium?

Source: Getty A team of researchers at the US Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground Maryland made a chance discovery when they poured water on a new aluminium alloy they were testing. It began to give off hydrogen immediately! Exciting enough? Well, let us rewind this recent ground-breaking discovery and allow it to sink in slowly as you read on. Hydrogen stands at number one on the periodic table; it is the most abundant element in the Universe. It is found in the sun and most of the stars and the planet Jupiter is composed mostly of hydrogen. On Earth, Hydrogen is prevalent in the form of plenteously available chemical compounds such as hydrocarbons and water. Some see hydrogen gas as the clean fuel of the future – generated from water and returning to water when it is oxidised . Hydrogen-powered fuel cells are increasingly being seen as ‘pollution-free’ sources of energy and are now being used in some buses and cars. Alth...
17 comments
Read more