Innovations in 3D Printing Technology: Materials, Methods, and Applications

1. 3-D PRINTING • Imagine how you could create this intricate object. Very difficult, but easy with 3-D Printing

2. An example of an engineering prototype. Using usual methods, would require hundreds of hours of intricate machining. • Printed directly from a drawing file at much lower cost.

3. HOW DOES IT WORK? S

4. 3D PRINTING METHODS • 3D Printing – Additive processing • Normal manufacturing is subtractive. • Plastic Jet Printing Process: also • calledFused Deposition Modeling (FDM), • is the simplest and lowest cost method, • but limited to plastics and soft metals. • Also lower precision. Think of squeezing • successive layers from a caulking gun. • Stereolithography (SLA): or • Selective Laser Sintering (SLS). Very thin • layers (typically 0.1mm or 0.004”) are • deposited, one by one, until the object is • complete.

5. MATERIALS USED Plastic Jet Printing Process: Thermoplastic materials such as ABS and polycarbonates of various types. Some applications use soft metals. Material is fed into heated nozzle from a spool of thread or wire. Stereolithography (SLA):Photosensitive resins of various types, clear or colored, in liquid form, poured into printing machine container. Material is hardened by ultraviolet light from laser. Remaining resin is reused. Selective Laser Sintering (SLS): Powders of polymers such as nylon (plain, glass-filled, or with other fillers) or polystyrene - metals including steel, titanium, gold, silver, alloy mixtures – ceramics of various kinds. High energy laser beam sinters (melts) the powder to form layers and attaching layers to each other. Unsintered powder serves as support for object until completed, then is reused. .

6. Printing machines: Early models up to $500,000. Costs dropped with increased production. SLA and SLS printers now available as low as $10,000. Low cost printers:Printers using FDM or Plastic Jet are now available for $2200 with capability of producing objects up to 285x150 x 150mm (11.2”x6”x6”) and resolution 0.1mm (0.004”) - Lower cost $800, resolution 0.3mm. Open Source Project: Basic patents have expired and Open Source software And kits allow hobbyists to make their own printers. 3D Printing services: Many companies now offer 3D printing services . COSTS AND AVAILABILITY

7. Industry: Fast prototyping of new designs for testing – small quantity production runs, example: spare parts for obsolete models. Fabricating molds, quickly, low cost. Entertainment:Producing sets and various objects for stage, film and TV. Custom-builttoys in small quantities Art: Producing three dimensional objects that would otherwise be almost impossible, including unusual jewelery. Architecture: Making models directly from drawings. Research: Building models that are easily modified for testing. Example: wing shapes for wind tunnel tests. Medicine: Developing tissues and structures from individual's own cells. . APPLICATIONS

8. INTERESTING PROJECT • Students at University of Southampton (U.K.) have designed and built several model airplanes by 3D printing - that actually fly! • One of the designs is shown here. Consists of 7 parts, each printed separately, then clipped together without fasteners. Only part not printed is tray with electronics and battery. • See http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~decode/index_files/Page804.htm

9. - _________3D PRINTED JEWELRY__________ • 3D printing allows unusual designs of jewelry in many different materials

10. Creating biological parts: . MEDICAL APPLICATIONS

11. - MORE ABOUT MEDICAL APPLICATIONSS Producing human body parts: Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Winston-Salem, NCis world leader in developing laboratory-grown organs implanted into patients. • Human urinary bladder – patient's own bladder cells are used and grown on bio-degradable surface that has been printed to exact shape of original bladder. Several young patients have successfully received bladders. • Jawbones, prosthetic limbs, a windpipe splint are among successful body parts produced experimentally. Even a working scale model kidney. • In addition to Wake Forest, the Universities of Michigan, Missouri and Pittsburgh have been carrying out this research, mostly funded by the U.S. Government. • Organovo Holdings, Inc. San Diego, is a private company developing bioprinting equipment and technology, so far funded almost entirely by grants. Builds equipment used by universities

12. - • _________SCIENCE FICTION?__________ • Printing a brand new • heart from the patient's • own cells – sounds • impossible – but perhaps in 20 years a reality

13. 1984 - Charles Hull invents stereolithography which allows digital data to be transformed into a 3D object. 1992 - First SLA and SLS machines produced to make complex parts layer by layer. 1999 – At Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine a urinary bladder membrane is printed that is coated with individual's own cells and successfully implanted in young boy. 2008 – First person walks on 3D printed prosthetic leg. 2011 – Un. of Southampton (UK) produces 3D printed model airplane that actually flies. 2012 – Doctors in Netherlands successfully implant a 3D printed lower jaw into 83-year old woman. - • HISTORY______________