3D printing is an additive manufacturing process which creates a physical object from a digital design. It involves using layers of material, building the structures through construction of layers of materials to grow the structure from bottom upwards. 3D printing technology has been around for quite a while, however, recently it has expanded its usage into many different applications, services, products and manufacturers. This article will introduce the history and concept of 3D printing, compare the advantages and disadvantages of the 3D technology. Then, it will explain
the mechanisms of the different 3D printing technologies. Furthermore, based on the requirements of IT Innovation Center, we will recommend which model of 3D printer could be adopted, and suggest any potential experiment or 3D printing service from the IT Innovation Centre.
3D printing started in the 1980s. At that time it used to be referred to as rapid prototyping where companies were able to use it to visualize the shape of the component. The market for enterprise 3D printers continues to expand with an explosion in the number of new vendors, services, products and uses. This explosion was due to two main reasons. First, during the last ten years the technology has evolved from the prototyping level to the manufacturing level, specifically when it started to move from plastics to metallic materials. 3D printing materials now support plastic, sand, ceramic to metal, with different colours available too, this much widen the usages of 3D printing. Second, the patent for fused deposition modelling (FDM) – one of the most common 3D printing technology expired in 2009, which contributed a lot to boost the consumer 3D printer market. RepRap ( http://reprap.org/ ) is humanity’s first general-purpose self-replicating manufacturing machine. RepRap takes the form of a free desktop 3D printer capable of printing plastic objects. Since many parts of RepRap are made from plastic and RepRap prints those parts, RepRap self-replicates by making a kit of itself. Through RepRap project’s mission to build a self-replicating machine, the first desktop 3D printer was born. As more and more manufacturers followed, the consumer 3D printing market took off in
2009.
3D printing is a rapidly developing technology, it has the following benefits:
- It can create complex designs and parts which are not easily created by conventional manufacturing methods.
- It allows to customize every item to user’s requirement without additional manufacturing costs.
- It does not need for tools and moulds, so it requires lower fixed costs.
- It is speedy and cost effective for quick prototyping.
- There is less waste in the materials.
Comparing with the conventional manufacturing, 3D printing currently has the following limitations: - It needs higher cost for large quantity production.
- There are fewer options in terms of materials, colours and finishes.
- Parts printed by 3D printers are often weaker than the traditional manufactured parts due to the layer-by-layer process.
- 3D printing technology has a precision limit based on the layer thickness, at the moment it cannot print objects requiring very fine details, for instance, the iPhone switch.