The future’s being printed out
THE Ramdani family of France have moved into their new four-bedroom home. Nothing unusual about that – except that it was made in just 54 hours and from a 3D printer.
Nordine and Nouria Ramdani, along with their three children, have become the first people in the world to move into a 3D-printed house, which cost about £176 000 (about R3,1 million), 20% cheaper than an identical construction using more traditional solutions, according to the BBC.
The construction team now believe they could print the same house again in only 33 hours.
A printer was used to print layers from the floor upwards to form the walls of the 95m square house that was built as a collaboration between the local city council, a housing association and the University of Nantes.
Each wall consists of two layers of the insulator polyurethane, with the space in-between filled with concrete.
Francky Trichet, the council’s lead on technology and innovation, believes the process will disrupt the construction industry, the BBC reported.
What once might have looked like something of a sci-fi movie – printing objects at the push of a button – is rapidly turning mainstream.
With 3D printing poised for a rapid leap this year – global spending on this disruptive yet enabling technology is expected to hit $12 billion – watching in earnest is former Chatsworth man Delon Mudaly.
He runs the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s (CSIR) National Laser Centre in Pretoria which has partnered with Aerosud Innovation Centre, an aeronautical engineering and manufacturing company, to develop an advanced 3D printer.
Unlike others, theirs prints out metal components.
The development of this platform started in 2011 and addresses a number of limitations on commercially available systems, said Mudaly.
Fast-forward to six years later, the project, called Aeroswift, funded by the Department of Science and Technology, has developed three titanium parts – a pilot’s throttle lever and a condition lever grip for the South African developed AHRLAC aircraft and a fuel tank pylon bracket, for a commercial aircraft.
In the South African landscape, where the government has its eyes set on growing and diversifying the economy, the Aeroswift project serves as a key role-player that has the potential to advance economic development, improve market competitiveness and unlocking the growing Additive Manufacturing industry,” said Mudaly.
The system uses a laser to melt titanium powder to produce metal parts for the commercial aerospace manufacturing sector.
“The CSIR as an organisation that undertakes scientific innovation for industrial development supports the Aeroswift project because of its strong potential to position South Africa at the forefront of the growing Additive Manufacturing industry,” said Mudaly.
The system can also be used to produce parts in other high value low volume market sectors, such as power generation, automotive tooling, medical and defence manufacturing sectors.
“We have developed new technologies and patents, which allow us to up scale the additive process to go significantly faster and significantly larger than other systems,” said CSIR National Laser Centre commercialisation manager Hardus Greyling.
Compared to conventional manufacturing technologies, which often rely on the removal of material through a machining process to produce a final component, additive manufacturing relies on various energy-depositing technologies to fuse powdered or wirebased materials into 3-D parts.
Marius Vermeulen, Aeroswift’s programme manager, envisages the use of 3D printer systems in factories with titanium metal parts being produced for the world in an effort to improve the competitiveness of traditional manufacturing sectors, fast-track industrialisation and essentially, drive economic development in South Africa.
Discussions on how to best commercialise this world-class 3D printing technology are still under way.