The nuclear industry is raising the quality-bar in terms of additive manufacturing again, this time by installing a 3D printed steel component in a Swedish nuclear power plant. The component in question is an upper tie plate grid, which has been installed on top of an ATRIUM 11 fuel assembly at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant, which is operated by Vattenfall, in Sweden. It has been designed by Framatome, who are designers of nuclear equipment. Let’s have a look at the printed component, and then take a look at this fuel assembly in some more detail. Here’s the printed upper tie plate grid. Printed steel nuclear fuel assembly component (Image credit: Framatome) It sits on top of the ATRIUM 11 fuel assembly, which is the most advanced boiling water reactor (BWR) fuel design on the market today. It has been operating in plants worldwide since 2012 as lead fuel assemblies… read more
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This week, The Virtual Foundry (TVF) is announcing an interesting new product, an FFF Metal 3D Printing Evaluation Kit. The package includes a completed metal part and all of the consumables required to 3D print your own metal part. You will need access to a filament based (FFF/FDM) 3D printer. If you don’t have access to a kiln, you can send it back to The Virtual Foundry and they will sinter it for you and send it back. How The VIrtual Foundry’s Filamet Evaluation Kit works. Image via The Virtual Foundry. Over the past 7 years The Virtual Foundry has earned a reputation as a flexible, ultra low cost method of 3D printing metal, glass and ceramic parts. Their approach is different from systems like those from Desktop Metal and Markforged. The Virtual Foundry maintains an open architecture philosophy with open lines of communication and a sense of community. The… read more
A new method for 3D printing MEMS sensors has been developed by researchers at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. The research has been published in the Nature Microsystems & Nanoengineering journal. The method aims to reduce costs of MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) for lower production volumes, and the research paper highlights how the researchers have been focusing on one type of sensor in particular; accelerometers. Costly While MEMS are relatively cost-effective when produced at industrial scales for common items such as smartphones, the development and manufacturing costs associated with producing MEMS tend to be a lot higher when manufacturing for smaller production runs. Many high tech products such as robots and even certain aircraft are not built in sufficient numbers to benefit from the cost savings associated with full-scale mass production. Scanning Electron Microscope image of the printed sensor (Image credit: KTH Royal Institute of Technology) Design engineers can often… read more
Researchers at Stanford University have announced the development of a polymerization process that’s “five to ten times faster” than the current quickest high-resolution resin 3D printers on the market. Essentially a fresh take on the Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP) method developed by Carbon, the team’s ‘iCLIP’ approach involves repurposing an oxygen-filled ‘dead zone’ at the bottom of a CLIP printer’s resin pool. By pumping extra material into this space, the scientists have managed to accelerate the process, and unlock unique conduit-integrated part designs. “This new technology will help to fully realize the potential of 3D printing,” says one of the study’s authors and Carbon Co-Founder, Joseph DeSimone. “It will allow us to print much faster, helping to usher in a new era of digital manufacturing, as well as to enable the fabrication of complex, multi-material objects in a single step.” A comparison of Carbon’s CLIP process and the ‘iCLIP’… read more
We have seen a few examples of additive manufacturing being used to manufacture prosthetic devices for smaller animals such as cats and dogs, but we seldom see it used on larger animals. But this week we have seen AM used to save a horse from a grim end. Read on to know more. Clydesdale Freda is a 15 year old Clydesdale horse living at the Larkrigg Riding School, Kendal, England. Freda had developed a canker in her hoof, and after the canker had been removed it had been patched up with gauze and duct tape in order to keep it from getting infected. This is apparently a completely normal procedure. Printed hoof cover (Image Credit: Andrew Allshorn) The trouble was, the duct tape kept falling off, and there was a high risk of infection and the canker remnants spreading further. Freda has been in a fair bit of pain as… read more
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- Airtech and Alpha Additive Create 3,000 lb LFAM Structure
- Continuum Powders Launches Copper-Nickel Alloys for High-Performance, Sustainable AM
- MPI Develops XRD System for Industrial and Academic Research
