3D Printing Bigger Than the Internet? In a recent article of The New York Times, the world renowned Thomas Friedman had stated his experience of visiting a research lab at General Electric in Niskayuna (U.S.) to see what new technologies they are working on and the business model the company is developing. It was clear that out of the many new business trends that the United States should want to dominate, the threedimensional printing is definitely one of them. In old days when companies wanted to build a critical machine parts, such as jet engine part, it used to take ample amount of time around a year to come up with the final product as it required designer to design the product, than company would have to build machine tools to make a prototype of that part, it also required to manufacture it as well as test it. This test takes around couple of month’s time. Today, engineers are using three-dimensional, computer-aided design software to design the parts on the computer screen. It is transmitted to a 3D printer, which is filled with metal powder and a laser device that prints the part out of the metal powder, with exact specifications, which could be immediately tested several times and the machine part is ready within couple of days. Additive manufacturing popularly known as 3D printing is a process of making a three-dimensional solid object of any shape from a digital model.3D printing is achieved using an additive process, where successive layers of material are laid down in different shapes. 3D printing is opposite of how manufacturing is done today. Traditional fabrication techniques involve filling fixed-shape molds, whittling down blocks of material to the correct shape, or drilling holes, 3D printing, on the other hand, it builds things up molecule by molecule. The 3D printing technology is used for both prototyping and distributed manufacturing with applications in industrial design, architecture, construction, automotive, aerospace, military, engineering, civil engineering, dental and medical industries, biotech (human tissue replacement), fashion, footwear, jewelry, eyewear, education, geographic information systems, and other than that, recently NASA has invested on researching 3D printers that could manufacture “food�. Additive manufacturing is done with three simple principles modeling, printing and finishing. That makes it look as if, it is a procedure, required to make a crafts model. But the game changing difference arises when this model turns into a real alloy metal part of a jet engine or a building prototype. There are many additive
manufacturing processes available today that uses metal powder or polymers as raw material. They differ in the way layers are deposited to create parts and in the materials that can be used. Some methods melt or soften material to produce the layers, for example: Selective laser melting (SLM) or Direct metal laser sintering (DMLS), Selective laser sintering (SLS), and Fused deposition modeling (FDM), while others cure liquid materials using different sophisticated technologies, such as Stereolithography (SLA) with Laminated object manufacturing (LOM), thin layers are cut to shape and joined together (paper, polymer, metal). Each method has its own advantages and drawbacks, and some companies consequently offer a choice between powder and polymer for the material from which the object is built. The HypeVs Reality: Whether it is hype or a reality, it is the Industry who decides, but one thing is for sure that 3D printing today is at the peak of inflated expectations, given to its revolutionizing manufacturing concepts and due to the dramatic contributions it offers, it is expected to transform the manufacturing of all things.
First, the miracle of 3D printing is that it largely removes manual labor from the manufacturing process. However, from another perspective it could be considered as a drawback. Second, it will cut down on waste, because there isn’t any discarded raw material in the additive manufacturing process. Less waste means big savings. Third, 3D printing allows for local production. It will no longer be necessary to ship raw materials to other countries, have them assembled into final products over there, and then ship them back to the destination market. Buy Now: http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Purchase/purchase_report1.asp?id =646
It is agreeable that 3D printing is not yet considered as a well established technology in all over the world, but its awareness and usage is growing incredibly fast, and it is expected to penetrate into the market with higher productions within next 3 to 7 years. Promoters and market experts are very optimistic about this technology because, 3D printing not only promises transformation in
commercial manufacturing but, as a manufacturing machine at home. It provides consumers to print physical objects, such as toys, house-wares at home, just as they print digital photos today. Rapid prototyping is a technique which rapidly fabricates a scale model of a physical part or assembly using three-dimensional Computer aided design (CAD) data. This technique is used to make a prototype of the actual product in the initial phases of its development to study and test. Construction of prototype/ parts is usually done using 3D printing. The above figure depicts the percentage share of a sector/industry in rapid prototyping. It could be observed that, over the years the number of industries using this technique is increasing, such as fashion and architecture. Also there is a change in positions and percentage share of the industries using rapid prototyping such as, Industrial designs, medical (bionics, biotechnology) and aerospace has gained the percentage share as compared to 2001 levels due to growing importance and innovations in these sectors. It is said that 3D printing is one of the most important innovations in recent times; whatsoever may be the reality butone thing that is true about it is the transformation is expected to bring in the manufacturing process, which may change the way how work is done. 3D printing market is expected to grow exponentially with market reaching around $4 billion by 2015. The few major companies in the market that are leveraging this technology and expected to play bigger roles in future are 3D Systems, Stratasys, ArcamAb,Envisiontec, Exone and many more. http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/3d-4d-technology-market646.html Contact: Mr. Rohan North - Dominion Plaza, 17304,Preston Road, Suite 800, Dallas, TX 75252 Tel: +1-888-600-6441 Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com