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The United States Air Force has begun to work with 3D printers, and the Israeli Air Force has also purchased a 3D printer to print spare parts. [ 114 ] In 2017, GE Aviation revealed that it had used design for additive manufacturing to create a helicopter engine with 16 parts instead of 900, weighing 40% lighter and being 60% cheaper.
3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. [1] [2] [3] It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer control, [4] with the material being added together (such as plastics, liquids or powder grains being fused), typically layer by layer.
In the United States, the Hill Air Force base is using 3D printed parts in repair of fighter jets. [76] Higher education has proven to be a major buyer of desktop and professional 3D printers. [77] Significant desktop 3D printer purchases by both K-12 and universities helped sustain a desktop 3D printer market that had problems in 2015–2016. [78]
Typically desktop 3D printers can make small plastic 3D objects. They use a roll of thin plastic filament, melting the plastic and then depositing it precisely to cool and harden. They normally build 3D objects from bottom to top in a series of many very thin plastic horizontal layers. This process often happens over the course of several hours.
A desktop FFF printer made by Stratasys. Fused deposition modeling was developed by S. Scott Crump, co-founder of Stratasys, in 1988. [6] [7] With the 2009 expiration of the patent on this technology, [8] people could use this type of printing without paying Stratasys for the right to do so, opening up commercial, DIY, and open-source 3D printer applications.
The original printer, christened in 2019, was certified by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest polymer 3D printer, the university said. It was used to create a 600-square-foot, single-family home made of wood fiber and bio-resin materials that are recyclable. Dubbed “BioHome3D," it showed an ability to quickly produce homes.
These instructions can be processed by a 3D printer to manufacture the corresponding model in either a bottom-up, top-down or even left to right manner. Before generating the instructions, support structures can be added to connect overhanging sections of the model to either the printing surface or other parts of the model.
Image credits: how.everything.works We all know that it’s a great thing to ask questions. We should never stop learning about the world around us, and there are infinite things to wonder about!