3D Printing

By Chris Adam A $1 million SBIR Phase II grant from the U.S. Air Force will help fast-track the development of a new innovative runway mat. Pablo Zavattieri, the Jerry M. and Lynda T. Engelhardt Professor in civil engineering at Purdue University, is working with Indiana Technology and Manufacturing Companies (ITAMCO) to develop the new…

By Stephanie G Seay Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have developed artificial intelligence software for powder bed 3D printers that assesses the quality of parts in real time, without the need for expensive characterization equipment. The software, named Peregrine, supports the advanced manufacturing “digital thread” being developed at ORNL that collects and analyzes data through…

By Manette Fisher Teens who built 3D printers during a weeklong robotics camp at Sandia National Laboratories last year have used them to make more than 3,000 face shields that have been donated to medical professionals and first responders in New Mexico. The camp was hosted by Sandia in collaboration with R4 Creating, a nonprofit…

Digital manufacturing innovator VELO3D announced today the commercial release of a manufacturing process for additively manufactured parts in Aluminum F357 on the company’s Sapphire metal 3D printing system. The foundry-grade aluminum alloy, suitable for the laser powder-bed fusion (LPBF) process, enables 3D printing of parts that have traditionally been manufactured using casting practices. There are…

Digital manufacturing innovator VELO3D announced today that it has raised $28 mil in a Series D funding round. New investors Piva and TNSC joined the round, along with existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Playground, and Khosla Ventures. This brings VELO3D’s total funding to $138 mil. “With the VELO3D integrated solution of Flow advanced pre-print software,…

Digital manufacturer VELO3D announces its plans to launch a next-generation Sapphire industrial 3D metal printer with a vertical axis of one meter. The system will ship in Q4 2020, with precision-tool and component manufacturer Knust-Godwin securing the first order to produce parts for an oil and gas application. “Our vision at VELO3D is to enable…

MIT researchers have invented a way to integrate “breadboards” — flat platforms widely used for electronics prototyping — directly onto physical products. The aim is to provide a faster, easier way to test circuit functions and user interactions with products such as smart devices and flexible electronics. Breadboards are rectangular boards with arrays of pinholes…

With the introduction of new FP 150, KNF further expands its line of next-generation low pulsation liquid diaphragm pumps. This line of products combines the pulsation level previously only achieved by gear pumps with advantages of diaphragm pump technology – self- priming, safe to run dry, and long service life. Pulsation at the nominal flow…

Researchers have utilized 3D printing and nanotechnology to create a durable, flexible sensor for wearable devices to monitor everything from vital signs to athletic performance. The new technology, developed by engineers at the University of Waterloo, combines silicone rubber with ultra-thin layers of graphene in a material ideal for making wristbands or insoles in running…

Elysium, the global interoperability solutions provider, has integrated its advanced suite of software to support realizing MBD/MBE with Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform to aid users in achieving fast, accurate, compliance-checked transfer of data in multi-CAD environments. The new Elysium integration also ensures that customized quality checks, geometry/PMI/attribute validation, and geometry simplification are done automatically within…

Who ever said bioengineers can’t get their groove on? The Rice University team led by Antonios Mikos says otherwise with its development of a groovy method to seed sophisticated, 3D-printed tissue-engineering scaffolds with living cells to help heal injuries. The researchers are literally carving grooves into plastic threads used to build the scaffolds. The grooves…

VELO3D and Honeywell Aerospace, a leading user of Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies with extensive knowledge across various platforms and applications, have announced a partnership to qualify VELO3D’s Sapphire system as a viable manufacturing platform for 3D print production of aircraft components. The Sapphire system was selected for its unique capabilities for building highly complex geometries…

A Q&A with David Bentley, Protolabs Digital manufacturing leader Protolabs has invested heavily in additive manufacturing equipment, with a concentration in laser powder-bed fusion (LPBF) technology. The company recently purchased their first Sapphire metal AM machine from Velo3D to explore its advanced SupportFree capabilities. Since the earliest days of additive manufacturing (AM), support structures have…

What do bones and 3D-printed buildings have in common? They both have columns and beams on the inside that determine how long they last. Now, the discovery of how a “beam” in human bone material handles a lifetime’s worth of wear and tear could translate to the development of 3D-printed lightweight materials that last long…

What would it take to transform a flat sheet into a human face? How would the sheet need to grow and shrink to form eyes that are concave into the face and a convex nose and chin that protrude? How to encode and release complex curves in shape-shifting structures is at the center of research…

When a person has a severely damaged cornea, a corneal transplant is required. However, there are 2,000 patients waiting for the cornea donation in the country as of 2018 and they wait for 6 or more years on average for the donation. For this reason, many scientists have put their efforts in developing an artificial…

Using human cells, Tel Aviv University (TAU) researchers have achieved a major breakthrough by developing a biologically personalized bioink and producing the first ever-3D printed heart. “This is the first time anyone anywhere has successfully engineered and printed an entire heart replete with cells, blood vessels, ventricles and chambers,” Tal Dvir, a professor in TAU’s…

A team of engineers at Tufts University has developed a series of 3-D printed metamaterials with unique microwave or optical properties that go beyond what is possible using conventional optical or electronic materials. The fabrication methods developed by the researchers demonstrate the potential, both present and future, of 3-D printing to expand the range of…

With the growth of 3D printing, it’s entirely possible to 3D print your own prosthetic from models found in open-source databases. But those models lack personalized electronic user interfaces like those found in costly, state-of-the-art prosthetics. Now, a Virginia Tech professor and his interdisciplinary team of undergraduate student researchers have made inroads in integrating electronic…

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed a unique 3D-printed transparent skull implant for mice that provides an opportunity to watch activity of the entire brain surface in real time. The device allows fundamental brain research that could provide new insight for human brain conditions such as concussions, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. The research…

Bioscientists are moving closer to 3D-printed artificial tissues to help heal bone and cartilage typically damaged in sports-related injuries to knees, ankles and elbows. Scientists at Rice University and the University of Maryland reported their first success at engineering scaffolds that replicate the physical characteristics of osteochondral tissue – basically, hard bone beneath a compressible…

A new 3D printing technique could allow researchers to create artificial tumors to test new drugs and therapies, ultimately leading to better and more personalized medicine. Engineers from McMaster University believe the new method could enable them to create realistic 3D cell clusters with several layers of cells to better mimic the conditions inside of…