The Principles and Applications of 3D Printing
2021-03-26
1. Introduction: 3D printing is essentially a layered and additive manufacturing concept. There are many techniques for borrowing such ideas, ranging from construction production to nano stacking. But mainstream 3D printing is mainly concentrated in the manufacturing industry, with individual manufacturing scales ranging from millimeters to 10 meters. We are also discussing 3D printing methods at this scale. In order to maintain integrity, we first introduce the characteristics, then industry applications, and finally introduce the process methods,. For commercial applications, my personal thoughts will be mentioned. 2. Characteristics of 3D Printing 2.1 Unique Advantages of 3D Printing In terms of characteristics, the layered stacking method of 3D printing has a high degree of flexibility, customization, and low sensitivity to the manufacturing difficulty and cost of part shapes. For complex parts with a large number of curved surfaces that are very difficult to machine, the advantages of 3D printing are extremely obvious. For example, for a type of geometry like the following, traditional machining often requires expensive machining centers with more than 5 axes to complete. However, for 3D printing, there is no significant difference between such parts and printing a wrench. In view of this advantage, Topology optimization is an important direction of 3D printing design. These types of parts can have reasonable strength and extremely light weight.
2.2 3D printing has strong component integration. In the past, for products with complex internal structures, such as hydraulic cylinders, hydraulic valves, and stamping molds with internal channels, it was often necessary to split them into multiple parts and assemble them precisely through complex connectors and mating surfaces. However, due to the emergence of 3D printing, it is possible to integrate several previous pieces into one piece. MOOG, a giant of hydraulic products, has developed a fully integrated hydraulic component of hydraulic cylinder and hydraulic valve several years ago. Boston Dynamics also uses a large number of 3D printed integrated parts in its structure. This integration trend and design method is also bound to be one of the development directions.
