Stampar 3D: Waħda Mit-Teknoloġiji tan-Nanufacturing L-aktar Rivoluzzjonarji tas-Seklu 21

When you first heard the words "3D Printing", did you imagine a super futuristic technology that often appears in science fiction movies? However, believe it or not, 3D Printing has been around for almost 40 years.

L-istampar tridimensjonali (3D) huwa proċess ta' manifattura addittiv li joħloq oġġett fiżiku minn disinn diġitali. Il-proċess jaħdem billi jistabbilixxi saffi irqaq ta 'materjal fil-forma ta' plastik likwidu jew trab, metall jew siment, u mbagħad jgħaqqad is-saffi flimkien.

Hawnhekk hawn skeda tal-ħin tal-Istampar 3D malajr mill-1940s sal-lum.

1940s: Kunċett

In fact, 3D Printing has existed in concept since 1945 - Murray Leinster explained the term in his 1945 short story Things Pass By, "But this constructor is both efficient and flexible. I feed magnetronic plastics — the stuff they make houses and ships of nowadays — into this moving arm. It makes drawings in the air following drawings it scans with photo-cells. But plastic comes out of the end of the drawing arm and hardens as it comes ... following drawings only."

1980s: Twelid

The first documented iterations of 3D printing can be traced back to the early 1980s in Japan. In 1981, Dr. Hideo Kodama at the Nagoya Municipal Industrial Research Institute published details concerning a "rapid prototyping" technique. This research was the first piece of literature to describe the layer-by-layer approach so intrinsic to 3D Printing. His research involved printing photopolymers using a method which preceded stereolithography, and also spoke about cross-sectional slices of layers which lay on top of each other to form the 3D object. However, Dr. Kodama didn't fulfill the patent application before his deadline and was never granted the patent.

A few years later, a trio of French engineers Alain Le Méhauté, Olivier de Witte, and Jean Claude Andréwas was seeking to create a rapid prototyping machine. Instead of resin, they sought to create a system that cured liquid monomers into solids by using a laser. They filed a patent for the stereolithography process, but abandoned due to a lack of business perspective.

It was Chuck Hull who actually built the first 3D printer. He submitted the first patent for stereolithography (SLA) in 1986, founded the 3D Systems Corporation, and in 1988, released the SLA-1, their first commercial product. This machine made it possible to fabricate complex parts, layer by layer, in a fraction of the time it would normally take. Hull went on to file more than 60 patents around the technology, becoming the godfather of the rapid prototyping movement and inventing the STL file format that's still in use today.

SLA wasn't the only additive manufacturing process being explored during this time. In 1988, at the University of Texas, Carl Deckard brought a patent for the SLS technology, another 3D printing technique in which powder grains are fused together locally by a laser. In the meantime, Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) was also patented by Scott Crump. The method involved melting a polymer filament and depositing it onto a substrate, layer by layer, to create a 3D object.

1990s - 2000s: Tkabbir

Fis-snin 90, ħafna kumpaniji u startups bdew jitfaċċaw u jesperimentaw bit-teknoloġiji differenti tal-manifattura addittiva. Matul dan iż-żmien, il-magni kienu differenti ħafna minn dawk li nużaw issa. Kienu diffiċli biex jintużaw, għaljin, u ħafna mill-istampar finali kienu jeħtieġu ħafna post-ipproċessar.

Fl-2004, Dr Adrian Bowyer, lettur anzjan fl-inġinerija mekkanika fl-Università ta 'Bath fir-Renju Unit, waqqaf il-proġett RepRap. Kien proġett ta'-sors miftuħ li kellu l-għan li jibni printer 3D li jista' jistampa ħafna mill-partijiet tiegħu stess. L-idea warajha kienet li l-istampar 3D jiġi demokratizzat billi t-teknoloġija tkun disponibbli għan-nies madwar id-dinja.

L-2009 kienet is-sena li fiha l-privattivi FDM waqgħu fid-dominju pubbliku, u fetħu t-triq għal mewġa wiesgħa ta 'innovazzjoni fl-printers 3D FDM, tnaqqis fil-prezz tal-printers 3D tad-desktop, u konsegwentement, peress li t-teknoloġija kienet aktar aċċessibbli, żieda viżibilità.

Stampar 3D Issa: Prim

Illum, il-prezzijiet tal-printers 3D bdew jonqsu, u għamluhom disponibbli għall-pubbliku ġenerali. Flimkien mal-prezzijiet li jbaxxu, żdiedu wkoll il-kwalità u l-faċilità tal-istampar.

3D Printing is used in a variety of fields. Scientists at the University of Southampton flew the world's first 3D-printed unmanned aircraft; the makers of a 3D-printed car reached up to 200 mpg with a hybrid gas/electric engine; and a start-up specializing in building ecological living structures came up with a robot-made habitat suitable for living on Mars.

L-avvanzi fl-Istampar 3D qed iseħħu aktar malajr minn qatt qabel. Huwa impatt enormi u potenzjal kbir qed ibiddlu ħajjitna.