Additive Manufacturing

A considerable amount of tools and equipment are needed to support aircraft before and after flight. Custom ground-support equipment typically isn't cost-effective to produce with conventional manufacturing methods because of the low quantities. Direct digital manufacturing (or 3D printing) provides the ideal platform to produce many ground support-equipment components because of its ability to produce parts without tooling expense.

"Constant Improvement" is a Stratasys white paper that discusses...

Aerospace manufacturers often produce small volumes to begin with and then customize products to customer need. Direct digital manufaturing using materials that meet FST (flame, smoke and toxicity) requirements lets manufacturers reduce cost by enabling production quantities as low as one. Requiring no tooling, additive manufacturing (a.k.a. 3D printing) enables each component to be customized in a production run without significantly affecting the manufacturing cost.

"Constant Improvement" is a...

Additive manufacturing has long been used in the aerospace industry to build functional prototypes used to evaluate form, fit and function. But machine improvements and new materials have opened up the potential for producing manufacturing tooling used to align, assemble, clamp, hold test and calibrate components and sub-assemblies at all stages of the manufacturing process. A key advantage of creating these tools with FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) is that they can be produced in less...

An article in MIT’s Technology Review, “ Why 3D Printing Will Go the Way of Virtual Reality,” speaks to the hype surrounding 3D printers today.

While there’s a lot of understandable excitement over 3D printers for consumer use, I have to agree with the author that the vision of the Star Trek-like home replicator, which produces professional-grade consumer products or parts will remain a futuristic dream for some time.

Before we have replicators in our homes, we’ll likely see a step where 3D...

Many assemblies are designed as assemblies because of limitations with traditional manufacturing processes. But with direct digital manufacturing you no longer have to worry about how to get a tool into position to machine a feature or how to get the part out of a mold. Direct digital manufacturing lets you build any geometry that you can define in your CAD system. No longer limited by the process, direct digital manufacturing allows complete assemblies, both static and dynamic, to be...

Last week Gardner Publishing, launched “Additive Manufacturing,” a quarterly supplement to Modern Machine Shop and its sister publication, MoldMaking Technology. A surprising move, since these publications are aimed at CNC and mold-making facility leaders.

By recalling hockey legend Wayne Gretsky’s secret to success, Senior Editor, Peter Zelinski explains why Gardner launched the publication. Gretsky said his secret was to skate where the puck is going, not where it’s been. It involves “seeing...

Researchers at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD) and Stratasys Inc. have developed what may be the first heat exchanger made by additive manufacturing (or 3D printing). Additive manufacturing can economically produce complex geometries so it has the potential to improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of heat exchangers in applications where plastic materials can be used.

In the UMD design, room air heated to 120^oC flows through the gaps between rectangular webbed tube plates and...

For many companies, the design process begins with the previous version of the product and proceeds with a series of step-by-step improvements. This approach may make sense when you are limited by conventional manufacturing methods such as injection molding and CNC machining. With direct digital manufacturing, on the other hand, the sky is the limit. So grab a pencil and a clean sheet of paper and let your imagination run free. Did you previously build a housing from four components so you could...

The Department of Defense STARBASE youth program recently placed a large order – roughly $1 million – with Stratasys for another batch of 3D printers. DOD STARBASE locations nationwide now have more than 100 Dimension and uPrint 3D printers being used as classroom technology. 3D printing or rapid prototyping with FDM technoloogy helps the program raise kids’ interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects and careers.

The week-long special program engages kids in...

"If at first you DO succeed, try try again" is an important rule to keep in mind when designing a part for direct digital manufacturing. A key advantage of direct digital manufacturing is that it allows you to easily and inexpensively build prototypes using the same manufacturing technology that will be used to produce the finished parts. So you can easily build and test a range of alternatives. Try something wild – who knows, maybe it will work. If it doesn't, you don’t lose a thing. If it does...

Don't forget to submit your design for Dimension's eighth annual Extreme Redesign 3D Printing Challenge. The deadline of Feb. 2 is just 3 weeks away. Students can submit an innovative new product design, a redesign of an existing product, or an original work of art or architecture. Dimension 3D Printing will award nine student winners either $2,500 or $1,000 scholarships in the categories of Middle School and High School Engineering, College Engineering, and Art & Architecture. If you win first...

When designing  a part for direct digital manufacturing, keep one important rule in mind: forget all the rules! Direct digital manufacturing or DDM frees design engineers from worry about design constraints that come with traditional manufacturing processes.  Additive manufacturing can build any geometry regardless of complexity without adding difficulty or cost. For example, you don’t have to worry about draft angles or parting lines for injection molding a part. And you don’t need to consider...

Today Stratasys introduced a new soluble support material for its rapid prototyping and direct digital manufacturing systems. It's called SR-100 and it's for use with the polycarbonate (PC-10) formulation. Without a soluble support material, the prototype's supports must be manually removed. Automating the process speeds up the time to get a finished part in hand. Dissolve time is only about 30-120 minutes.

Prior to this introduction, soluble support material was available only for material...

As additive manufacturing is used more frequently to produce short-run production parts and manufacturing tools, like jigs and fixtures, engineers need to consider how well the parts hold their dimensions over time. The main controlling factor in assessing dimensional stability is the production material.

A Stratasys white paper, entitled "The Accuracy Myth: Don't Make the Mistake of Confusing Resolution with Accuracy" addresses the question of long-term stability of parts produced by additive...

Resolution has long been one of the qualities used to evaluate the performance of an additive manufacturing system. But today, additive manufacturing systems are most commonly used to build parts that measure several inches across and have tolerances of several thousands of an inch or greater. In this situation, the resolution of the manufacturing system is much less important than its overall accuracy, the deviation between the CAD model and the measured value of the part

A Stratasys white...

In a news release today, Stratasys said it would begin offering complete 3D printing packages, called “3D Print Packs,” that include new special-edition uPrint machines.This is new. No one else offers a complete, all-in-one package that makes it this simple to get up and modeling.

And in the U.S., the 3D Print Packs are available for a monthly lease price of $290, another first. At $290 a month, buying may be less expensive than outsourcing a single model. Think of the money you’d save...

When design and manufacturing professionals glance at a high-resolution additively manufactured part and assess it as "high accuracy" they make a big mistake. High resolution can make a pretty part, but this high resolution itself does not mean the part is accurate. In other words, that perfect-looking part with smooth surface, sharp edges, and fine detail might not hold a tight tolerance. And even if an additive machine can make an accurate part, this accuracy might not be repeatable.

An...