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3D printing transforms spools of plastic filament or trays of resin into physical objects. 3D printing is quite literally out of this world. NASA maintains a 3D printer on the International Space Station and astronauts can build custom tools (like this maintenance wrench) without having to fly them into space. 3D printing has been adopted by […]

3D printing or additive manufacturing is the process of making three-dimensional solid objects from a digital file. The creation of a 3D printed object is achieved using additive processes. In an additive process, an object is created by laying down successive layers of material until the object is created. Each of these layers can be […]

As an additive manufacturing (AM) technique, three-dimensional (3D) printing enables customized fabrication of 3D constructs based on computer aided design (CAD) software or images obtained from computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Firstly developed in the 1980s, 3D printing technology was called rapid prototype technology and has been well applied in a variety […]

The International Space Station has continuously been home to astronauts for more than nineteen years. Astronauts conduct scientific research using dozens of special facilities aboard the space station, which also provides them with a place to eat, sleep, relax and exercise. To make all of this possible requires sending more than 7,000 pounds of spare parts to […]

3D printing began its road to recovery in 2021 after a difficult year in 2020, where the entire industry felt the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Within this year of recovery, IDTechEx has noted the development and/or continuation of micro-trends within each major 3D printing subspecialty: polymer, ceramic, composite, and metal additive manufacturing. In this article, IDTechEx identifies and explains […]

As we mark our entry into the 4th decade of 3D printing in 2021, we also enter a decade with the potential for radical renewal. The COVID-19 crisis has had an enormous effect on every industry and continues to propel us into a space where we need to think differently.  To think about where we need to […]

Traditional rockets are incredibly inefficient for a number of reasons, not least due to the fact that they are mostly disposable. But reusability aside, another reason that rockets are inefficient is the fixed geometry of the bell nozzle. Efficient rocket thrust is dependent on the exhaust gas going in the correct direction (opposite to direction […]

3D printed boats are the future, we are pretty sure of that. Boats are really the perfect shape and complexity to benefit from additive manufacturing, and the amount of labor involved in traditional boat building could certainly benefit from a less hands-off approach. Drifty, a Dutch company has turned to 3D printing to produce a […]

Granule / pellet printing is the way forward, as most of you will probably agree. Also known as Fused Granular Fabrication (FGF), it is already the standard for industrial printing and for large format printing for a variety of reasons, cost being one such reason, which we will discuss later. However, it has not really […]

Wisconsin-based company PrintFoam wants you to stop designing plastic lattices with your fancy generative design and topology optimization software and start designing for foams instead. After all, many of the lattices designed in these softwares are just trying to mimic the behavior of foams anyway, with their light densities and whatnot. So why not cut out the […]