3D printing could herald new industrial revolution
As potentially game-changing as the steam engine or telegraph were in their day, 3D printing could herald a new industrial revolution, experts say.
For the uninitiated, the prospect of printers turning out any object you want at the click of a button may seem like the stuff of science fiction. But 3D printing is already here, is developing fast, and looks set to leap from the labs and niche industries onto the wider market.
“There are still limits imposed by the technology available today,” said Olivier Olmo, operational director of Switzerland’s EPFL research institution. “But I’m certain that within 10 or 20 years, we’ll have a kind of revolution in terms of the technology being available to everyone,” he said.
The concept’s roots lie in fields ranging from standard two-dimensional printing to machine-tooling.
First, a 3D digital design is created either from scratch on a computer or by scanning a real object, before being cut into two-dimensional “slices” which are computer-fed into a printer.
The printer gradually deposits fine layers of material — such as plastic, carbon or metal — and builds a physical object.
Moving parts
The product can be as hard or as flexible as you programme the printer to make it, and even include moving parts rather than being a solid block. “In theory, anything that we have today can be produced through 3D printing. It may just alter manufacturing as we know it,” said Simon Jones, a technology expert at global law firm DLA Piper.
In addition to the potential ecological impact of producing products right where they are needed, Jones said, 3D printing could make small-scale production of objects cheaper, rather than turning out huge numbers which may go to waste. The uses go beyond easy replication of things that exist already. The technology offers possibilities that available manufacturing does not,” said Carla van Steenbergen of i.materialise, a Belgium-based service that prints designs for users.
Van Steenbergen also pointed out to objects such as customised screws for broken bones which match a patient’s specific anatomical characteristics and thereby cause less deterioration than the traditional variety.
“It’s the kind of thing that traditional technology won’t allow. It’s the kind of area where the big added value lies, making the impossible become possible,” Van Steenbergen further added.
The technology has been around for longer than many would think: the first commercial 3D print technology, known as stereo-lithography, was invented in 1994.
It has taken time to inch into the limelight, however.