Manufacturing Industry may Revolutionize with the Use of 3D Printing
Published on : Thursday 06-08-2020
To eliminate the need for expensive manufacturing tools, and its energy-efficient features, additive manufacturing or 3D printing is becoming increasingly integrated into various industries. The main reason behind this could be its ability to produce items of complex shape and geometry. Moreover, 3D printing can produce different objects without creating specific tooling or even using several tools. And that's how 3D printing works in reducing the industrial expenses and also increases the flexibility in the production flow. In this way, the additive manufacturing enables many people to produce and sell their creations by skipping distribution networks and traditional edition.
In one line you can say, 3D printing gives everyone the power to manufacture objects only when they are desired or needed.
What is 3D printing or Additive Manufacturing?
Additive manufacturing or 3D printing has brought a revolution in the manufacturing industry. As they are synonyms for the same process, 3D printing or additive manufacturing refers to the process of building parts by joining material layer by layer from a computer-aided design (CAD) file. Now, you might be wondering why 3D printing is called additive manufacturing. As the creation of a 3D printed object is achieved using additive processes, hence the name. An object is created by laying down successive layers of material until the object is created in an additive process.
When you create an object by traditional means, the material is often removed through carving, machining, milling, shaping, or any other means. In contrast, we use additive manufacturing to get more precise shapes. After the raw materials are either extracted from minerals or produced from natural or basic substances, the cycle of the manufacturing process starts immediately.
The amazing capabilities of additive manufacturing have transformed production majorly in five industries i.e. aerospace, consumer products, energy, medical, and transportation, in particular. If implemented properly, additive manufacturing can significantly reduce material waste, the number of distinct parts needed for an assembly, and the number of production steps. Single-step manufacture, customization, ease of access, speed, complexity, and design freedom are the main advantages of 3D printing.
Processes Involved In Additive Manufacturing Processes are:
• Material Extrusion
• Directed Energy Deposition
• Material Jetting
• Binder Jetting
• Sheet Lamination
• Vat Polymerization
• Powder Bed Fusion
How 3D Printing Can Change The Future Of Development?
With the potential of 3D printers in homes in the near future, the costs of 3D printing are still decreasing. And, the much-raised question for everyone would be does 3D printing save money? The answer to this would be yes. It saves businesses time and money. 3D printers also allow testing of new product designs by decreasing production time and costs. With essential products, it could help connect difficult-to-reach and marginalized populations, as this technology spreads. It has the potential to modernize our societies and change the development sector. But, we need to make sure that this emerging technology is in the correct hands of stakeholders and development practitioners around the world.
Based on different industry sectors, 3D printing has various emerging and near-term future uses in automotive and industrial manufacturing, retail, aerospace, pharma/healthcare. Also, it has a very bright future in engineering where it can be used in rapid prototyping, reduced lead times, and also mass production.
Here is a list of few 3D Printer manufacturers:
1. HP, US
2. Proto Labs, US
3. 3D Systems, US
4. Stratasys, Israel
5. Materialise, Belgium
6. SLM Solutions Group, Germany
7. Nano Dimension, Israel
8. ExOne, US