Aerospace and defense.
Engineers at GE's China R&D center are still buried in 3D printing technology. Just a few days ago, they used 3D printers to successfully "print" an important part of an aero-engine. Compared with traditional manufacturing, this technology will make the part cost reduction of 30%, 40% shorter manufacturing cycle. Too late to celebrate the happy results, they hastily embarked on a new journey. Little known fact is that they have been "secretly" developing 3D printing technology for ten years.
Medical industry. An 83-year-old man suffering from a chronic bone infection had his jawbone "printed" by a 3D printer, the world's first case of a human skeleton made from 3D printed products.
Conservation. Museums often use sophisticated alternatives to protect original works from environmental or accidental damage, while replicas can spread the impact of the art or artifact to a wider audience. The Smithsonian, for example, used a giant 3D-printed replacement of the original Thomas Jefferson in the place of the original sculpture because it was to be placed on display in Virginia.
Architectural design. In the construction industry, engineers and designers have embraced building models printed on 3D printers as a method that is fast, inexpensive and environmentally friendly while being beautifully produced. It's perfectly suited to the designer's requirements and saves a lot of material at the same time.
Manufacturing. The manufacturing industry also needs a lot of 3D printed products, as 3D printing is much better than traditional manufacturing in terms of cost, speed and accuracy. And 3D printing technology itself is perfect for mass production, so there are so many benefits to be gained from utilizing 3D technology in the manufacturing industry that even quality control is no longer an issue.
The food industry. That's right, "printing" food. Researchers are already trying to print chocolate. Perhaps in the near future, a lot of food that looks exactly the same will be "printed" using food 3D printers. Of course, by that time, it will probably be many times more expensive to make the food by hand.
Examples of 3D printed products
3D printed photo studio. All it takes is a 10-minute 3D scan and a few hours of waiting to get a physical portrait. Use 3D printing photo technology to print doll souvenirs.
3D printed gun. Not long ago, a news of the world's first 3D printed pistol CAD production files were downloaded more than 100,000 times on the Internet caused panic. The printing device for the cell phone, reportedly, was a Stratasys Dimension SST-type 3D printer. People are panicking because by this reasoning, how safe is it to have a gun made with just a 3D printer?
The 3D printed gun is like a toy with a more lethal weapon, a toy that changes its own stance once it goes beyond its inherent recreational properties and involves safety issues. Last year, the U.S. Cody Wilson, he was in college when he planned to study the 3D printed gun, in a few months, Wilson and his team realized this plan, successfully developed the name of the "liberation of the" 3D printed gun, and then shot a video to demonstrate the shooting of metal nails experiments. The gun was built on an $8,000 3D printer, and the designers have since tried to make larger caliber bullets to demonstrate the gun's deterrent effect.
The "Chinese dragon" is "shadowed" by a 3D printer. Since mankind entered the age of industrialization, the production of large machines has always followed the pattern of mold products. However, yesterday's reporter in the soft fair site to see, without the help of any mold, a fine carved "Chinese dragon" from the 3D printer actually out of the "shadow".
Printing music. To explore more applications for 3D printers, Rickard Dahlstrand uses the Lulzbot 3D printer to create unique art. At the 2013 Stockholm Art Hacking Festival, the Lulzbot 3D printer not only printed the festival's logo for the participating artists and hackers, but as a performance item, it also played classical music while printing visualizations of the music pieces accordingly.The Lulzbot 3D printer prints visualizations of music based on the principle that the motion of this stepper motor is controlled to be able to The movements of the stepper motors are controlled to run at different speeds, the pitch of the sound determines the speed, and thus the music controls the printing process. Each of the three motors represents a musical track, and they move using a unique pattern. Two motors control the Z-axis movement.
Australian researchers use 3D printers to create enlarged versions of insect specimens. Australia is home to many notoriously large bugs, such as the 20-inch-long Titan stick insect. But the country is also home to many tiny insects, such as the tiny wheat wheevil (what's its Chinese name?). To take the study of tiny insects "a step further," Australia's national science agency has used 3D printing technology to create 3D copies with somewhat exaggerated magnification.
A semi-processed 3D-printed violin.
A few days ago abroad, the world's first 3D-printed violin was born, but it is in fact a semi-finished product, this violin maker Alex Davis with 3D printing to create the main body parts of the violin after he and his team and then lay newspaper and glue plastic to complete the second half of the production. A piece of cardboard was used for the neck, along with some simple decorations, and a few days later, a not-so-pleasant demo video was heard on YouTube, which, his maker said, was nothing more than a weekend and $12.
Printing stem cells.
Stem cells, also known as cells of origin, are a class of multipotential cells with the ability to replicate themselves, and under certain conditions they can differentiate into a variety of functional cells. It is an under-differentiated, still immature cell with the potential to regenerate various tissues and organs and the human body. Although 3D printing technology is not yet able to apply it perfectly to medical technology, scientists have already made in-depth attempts to this vision.
Replacement of bones
In fact, there have been a lot of reports are discussing, 3D printing technology applied to the medical cause is the biggest benefit for human beings, for the idea of printing human organs has also been in constant practice, print organs, although it is still a dream, but at present, has been successfully realized in a number of, for example, the replacement of the skull, close to 75% of the perfect reproducibility of the 3D Printing in the future maturity worth looking forward to.
Sound-imitating ear
Still centered around medical technology, foreign researchers through the interception of human calf cells polymer and nano-particles made of human hearing can be replaced by the receiver, which is similar to the radio signal of the "bionic ear" was also born.
Summary
While 3D printing has covered the automotive, aerospace, consumer goods, healthcare, education, architectural design, toys and other fields, but due to the limitations of the printing material, the product mostly stays in the modeling level. In other words, the current advantage of 3D printing technology is mainly to shorten the time of the design stage, making it easier for designers to realize their models. For example, in the traditional manufacturing process, no matter what industry, the designer's drawings, need to be split into various elements, to open the mold, and then assembled, the disadvantage is that it takes a long cycle. And when the designer to make adjustments to the model, the same steps have to be repeated again, the cycle is repeated. And with 3D printing, the designer's drawings can be quickly turned into something solid, and then open the mold for large-scale mass production. The significance of 3D printing technology lies more in the time cost savings in the design process.