3D Printing Research

Researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) have received a $659,970 grant from the US Department of Defense’s (DoD) Army Research Office to improve the reliability of metal 3D printing processes. Using computational designs, the project is seeking to improve the US military’s capabilities to produce parts using additive manufacturing for critical machinery, including its aircraft.  “One of the challenges of metal AM is the difficulty of knowing with 100 percent certainty what the mechanical properties (such as stiffness and strength) are in the printed components,” said David Restrepo, Assistant Professor in UTSA’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. “It is also challenging to predict or reduce the dimensional variability of the components when compared with the design specifications. “These challenges mean that printed parts currently cannot be certified to use in critical components – those that, if a failure occurs, may compromise human lives.” UTSA researchers Arturo Montoya,…    read more 

MELD Manufacturing, a 3D printing technology developer based in Christiansburg, Virginia, has teamed up with Virginia Tech to advance its Additive Friction Stir Deposition technology. Having invented the metal 3D printing process, MELD Manufacturing continues to develop its technology while manufacturing 3D printers based on it. Now, the Yu Research Group from Virginia Tech’s Materials Science and Engineering lab has begun spearheading the study of the technology in an academic capacity. According to Virginia Tech, its research interests include process fundamentals such as temperature, material flow, and distortion, dynamic phase and microstructure evolution, and the design and manufacturing of heterostructured materials. The team also hopes to develop new applications using magnetic materials, metallic glass, and shape-memory materials. Nanci Hardwick, CEO and Founder of MELD Manufacturing, explains, “We have a primary relationship with the Material Science Department. And they’re so critical for us because they have expertise. They have one of…    read more 

A novel project underway at the University of Strathclyde has received just under £500,000 to develop miniaturized acoustic systems by means of additive manufacturing. The university’s RESINators – Miniature Acoustic Resonator Systems project, delivered in partnership with the University of Glasgow, is exploring ways of creating acoustic resonators formed of metamaterials via 3D printing, rather than relying on electronic systems.  “We are aiming to eventually develop cutting edge systems for personal audio that could constitute the science of audio of acoustic systems for the next generation of technologies in wearable consumer projects,” said Project Lead Dr. Joe Jackson, from the University of Strathclyde’s department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering. Acoustic 3D printing Additive manufacturing has been utilized in the past to develop sound-enhancing and proofing properties to objects. Last year, Fraunhofer UMSICHT and Fraunhofer IBP 3D printed fungus-based sound-proofing devices which could be used to fabricate a new line of…    read more 

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have converted a six-axis robotic arm into a 3D bioprinter capable of printing cells from all directions. Using the modified bioprinter, the researchers were able to fabricate a complex-shaped blood vessel scaffold without causing cell damage or preventing cell growth and function, which are common challenges to current bioprinting methods. The 3D printed vascularized cardiac tissue remained alive and beating for six months, and could demonstrate a feasible method of bioprinting functional tissues and organs in the future.  The team also designed a repeated print-and-culture bioprinting strategy that could generate complex tissues or organs containing blood vessel networks capable of maintaining long-term survival and key functions in the future.  The CAS researchers’ novel bioprinting platform. Image via Bioactive Materials. 3D bioprinting tissues Over the past decade, there has been significant progress made in the development of viable patient-specific tissues by means of…    read more 

Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the University of Calgary have developed a new kind of shapeshifting robotic cube using 3D printing technology. ElectroVoxels, as they’re called, are self-configuring robot blocks that can assemble themselves into all manner of shapes. These modular robots don’t use any clunky and expensive motors whatsoever, leveraging embedded electromagnets as an actuation mechanism instead. This allows them to repel, attract, and spin around each other with ease and scalability, like a hive mind of intelligent Lego bricks. The MIT team has already taken their ElectroVoxels for a spin on a parabolic flight, testing their functionality in microgravity conditions. They believe the work could have major implications for applications in outer space, such as dynamically-morphing spacecraft or storage containers that change their size based on the payload. Martin Nisser, lead author of the study, said, “When building a large, complex structure,…    read more