The hype around 3D printing has created a lot believers in a โnew industrial revolutionโ where everyone can make their own products, from cars to action figures.
Though consumer-facing 3D printers can make some pretty cool stuff nowadays, CES Asiaโs talks on 3D printing last Friday made it clear that the future of 3D printing technology belongs to companies.
โLast year, 3D printing was a very popular topic,โ said Richard Lu, the Director of Autodesk Consumer and 3D Printing Group, at CES Asia 2016 last Friday. โIn mainstream magazines, people talk about 3D printing โ even Obama talked about 3D printing โ [and] how 3D printing will come to every household in the future, like the desktop.โ
โDo you think itโs realistic? Will [3D printing] be a necessity for every household? I donโt think so,โ he said.
This year, industry experts at CES Asia focused on industrial 3D printing instead, touching on applications in B2B and B2C products such as customized medical devices and lighter airplanes. For example, using 3D metal printers, companies like Arcam have been able to create hip implants that look like titanium cups of foam, porous enough for tissue to grow into. Last December, Autodesk partnered with aircraft manufacturer Airbus, to design 3D printed airplane parts that would reduce the weight of Airbusโ airplanes and save fuel.
โPreviously, [General Electricโs fuel injection nozzle] was assembled with eighteen components. Now it can be done in one step,โ said Jane Yu, the Executive Director at Recycling Times Media, which covers the 3D printing industry. โThe weight was reduced by 25% and the life cycle is the five times of the previous one.โ
3D printing technology has been around for several decades, but its popularity in mainstream media only took off recently, coinciding with a larger, worldwide movement around โmakers,โ or everyday people who are empowered to create things on their own.
In 2012, Chris Anderson, the former editor-in-chief at Wired Magazine and author of Makers: The New Industrial Revolution, said that 3D printing would be โbigger than the Web.โ For consumers, that might be an exaggeration, but for industry players, such as automobile and aircraft manufacturers, 3D printing has the enormous potential to reduce costs and offer customization at scale.
โEvery person is different, every personโs feet is different, every personโs walk is different,โ said Mr. Van de Perre.
By analyzing a personโs foot shape and the distribution of pressure across their feet while walking and running, RSPrintโs software makes design suggestions, which sports specialists can adapt manually if needed. Materialise has also worked with Phonak, a hearing aid company, to cut down its design process for customized hearing aids from โtwo daysโฆto two minutesโ, according to Mr. Van de Perre.
Autodesk, which is best known for its 3D modeling software, AutoCAD, has also focused on improving the design process for 3D printing and product designers. Specifically, the company is looking at โgenerative design,โ where cloud-based software can automatically create a product design based on user requirements.
โYou just have to tell the computer what you want, what you want it to do, and you can also provide some parameters on limitations, [like] a certain weight, the strength of the materials,โ said Mr. Lu.
He showed an example of a load-bearing engine block that was automatically designed using Autodesk Within, a set of generative design software solutions for engineers in automotive, aerospace, industrial equipment and medical implant industries.
โThe structure is very elegant and the heat exchange efficiency is even better than traditional ones,โ he said. โThis is a feature of 3D design. It looks like very elegant, but with a traditional CNC or forging or casting, it is very difficult to make. But for 3D printing, itโs not difficult at all.โ
However, in addition to touting the potential of 3D printing technology, both Mr. Lu and Mr. Van de Perre addressed the flaws and trade-offs of 3D printing, such as limitations on speed and printing quality. In particular, both speakers reacted against the ubiquity of consumer-facing 3D printers and the overall hype around 3D printing tehnology.
โYou [need] to first figure out why you need to use 3D printing,โ said Mr. Van de Perre. โFor example, if you want to make a pen and sell millions of pens, it does not make any sense to use 3D printing.โ
โI want to avoid [the situation] where people say, โ3D printing is very cool, letโs buy a machine!โฆWhat shall I print?โ,โ he said.
Image credit: Arcam, Autodesk, Airbus.
