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The evolution of 3D printing in recent years means everything from house bricks to hearing aids can now be created quickly and easily. An ever-growing industry, the future of 3D printing looks bright, as it has gradually made itself indispensable in our lives.
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While the use of home printers hasn’t taken off as anticipated, the technology is transforming the manufacturing sector by creating a “golden development period” – a phrase coined by industry experts earlier this year.
The first prototype 3D printer was launched in 1981 by Dr Hideo Kodama, a Japanese inventor, who filed a patent for his machine that created components using resin polymerised by ultraviolet light. However, American Chuck Hall earned the title of the inventor of 3D printing in 1986, when he filed the first patent for the stereolithography or SLA format. Today, this 3D printing process is commonly used in industry to create complex parts, prototypes and concept models with a quick turnaround, often in one day.
Carl Deckard, a University of Texas student, created selective laser sintering technology in 1988 to carry out a different kind of 3D printing. SLS enables the manufacture of an object from a digital 3D or CAD model.
Former Washington State University student Scott Crump filed a patent for his invention, fused filament fabrication, in 1989. It provided the basis for his company, Stratasys, a major player in the 3D printing industry today.
A report in 2012 suggested that in ten years’ time, everyone would have a 3D printer at home that could be used to make all kinds of useful things, such as parts for their washing machine if they broke While that hasn’t happened, the use of 3D technology has been steadily growing in industry and has created products that have enhanced our lives in many ways.
For example, in the health sector, around 99% of custom hearing aids are made by 3D printing in acrylic resin. In dentistry, it’s used to make teeth aligners to remove the need for old-fashioned wire braces. The technology makes shoes for top brands such as Nike and Adidas. In the automotive industry, it creates car parts and in the aerospace sector it makes 3D printed aircraft components.
Leading brands such as AstraZeneca, General Electric and Rolls-Royce are among those involved in the multi-million-pound industry.
A report by Hubs forecasts the global 3D printing market will triple in size to £35 billion by 2026, with one of the main growth areas being construction.
The first 3D printed home was constructed in 2018 in France. Large enough to house a family of five, comprising two adults and three children, the house in Nantes cost just £176,000 to build and was completed in 54 hours. In the US, Dubai and the Netherlands, constructors soon followed suit and created more ambitious structures using the technology.
In the UK, a project in Accrington, Lancashire – home of the strongest bricks ever produced since 1887 – has pioneered the development of 3D-printable load-bearing concrete that is durable and cost-effective. The Building for Humanity construction project on Charter Street is being completed by Harcourt Technologies of Dublin by using 3D printing, rather than traditional home-building methods.
A rig on the building site enables raw materials for the concrete to be delivered, mixed and fed directly into the printhead. The 3D technology has been described as resembling a “giant cake-icing machine” that produces one of the world’s most robust materials, concrete.
The Accrington home building project has a budget of £6 million, saving 25% compared with traditional construction methods. Materials are often recycled and sustainable, which also enables the project to be completed in 101 days, rather than a year.
Homes are built up using layer after layer of concrete to create the superstructure. The sophistication of the material has evolved over time and rather than having a ribbed exterior, the 3D printed buildings look slicker.
Research began around a decade ago into the possibility of 3D printed food, with the vision that people could pop the ingredients into a 3D printer to make items such as croissants or perfect pasta in minutes by tapping a few buttons.
Around 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted annually across the planet, so scientists hoped it would alleviate this problem. Printing fresh food only when needed would, in theory, mean it wasn’t left sitting in storage and potentially going to waste.
Elzelinde van Doleweerd, an industrial design graduate from Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, has been experimenting with vegetables and fruit – the food items that most often go to waste. In 2021, she began work in the kitchen of the Alchemist, a restaurant in Copenhagen, using 3D printing technology to dehydrate fruit and vegetables and transform them into printed foods with a much longer shelf life. Ranked 18th in the world’s top 50 restaurants, The Alchemist is famous globally.
Van Doleweerd’s first 3D printed meal was beetroot and carrot tart served with chitosan petals made from shellfish. While it looks and tastes good and is inexpensive to produce, there are challenges when it comes to producing it under pressure during opening times, so it hasn’t yet made it onto the menu.
Van Doleweerd is now working in the food laboratory of the Netherlands’ Restaurant De Nieuwe Winkel on its plant-based menu to further develop the technology.
In the US, 3D printing is enabling fully customised, lightweight cars to be produced by Czinger in Los Angeles. The technology enables geometric freedom for its first model, the 21C, a supercar with a price tag of £1.5 million, a top speed of 253 mph and the ability to go from 0-60 mph in less than two seconds.
Recruiting 150 top employees with backgrounds in F1, Apple, Ferrari and SpaceX to ensure the technology’s development progresses further in the future; the prototype 21C was created by the company founders, father and son team Kevin and Lukas Czinger
The 3D printed car parts are increasingly sophisticated and demonstrate what can be achieved through digital design and 3D printing, according to the BBC’s Top Gear.
Dust extraction is crucial due to the generation of ultrafine, nano-sized particles during printing, as these have health and safety risks for workers, who may inhale them and suffer respiratory problems. In addition, depending on the materials being used, chemical vapours from acrylonitrile, styrene, or formaldehyde may also be released into the air.
Installing an appropriate dust extraction system is vital, not only to protect employees, but also to ensure your businesses complies with health and safety legislation, such as the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002.
AirBench Ltd are the UK’s leading manufacturer of downdraught benches and cross draught extraction systems. We have more than 10,000 extraction systems in service in the UK and overseas. Along with our range of coolant mist filters and air cleaning systems, we are actively helping businesses across many industries solve their workplace dust and fume issues.
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If you’d like to try an AirBench product for FREE simply book a demo and we’ll bring one to you.