Some use it to grow bones. Others to build planes. The American talk show host Jay Leno used it to replace the rusty bits of his 1907 White Steamer automobile, one of his vast collection of old cars. Hardly a week goes by without headlines about 3D printing, a technology that’s going to change the way you live. Welcome to the next industrial revolution.
The first industrial revolution boosted the income of hoi polloi and reshaped society over decades as manual labour was displaced by machine-based manufacturing. Factories produced items in their thousands and tens of thousands to enjoy vast economies of scale. Today, however, bespoke craftsmanship is making a comeback, thanks to 3D printing or “additive manufacturing”, in which a three-dimensional object is built layer by layer.
As a manufacturing process, 3D printing contrasts with the traditional “subtractive” approach, which relies on milling, grinding and cutting to remove material, wasting much of it in the process. This creative development offers all kinds of advantages and innovations.
The company 3T RPD, of Greenham Common, Berkshire, working in partnership with the University of Southampton, has created an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle; Plastic Mould the world’s first 3D-printed aircraft. At Loughborough University, Richard Buswell is developing a vast, three-storey rig to create buildings by ''concrete printing’’.
Susmita Bose and colleagues at Washington State University recently described in the journal Dental Materials how they used a customised printer to create a bone-like material that can be used in orthopaedic operations and dental work. Other researchers are laying down layers of living cells. And a new generation of edible objects is being printed by Peter Walters at the University of the West of England. Scientists can reconstruct fossil bones, clone priceless artefacts and forge body parts.
Why stock warehouses with parts from abroad when entire designs can now be stored in virtual computer warehouses, waiting to be printed locally, and on demand? So asks a Science Museum curator, Ben Russell, who has used 3D printing at University College London to recreate the contents of a delicate plaster mould that turned out to be a lost bust of the Scottish engineer James Watt. He says 3D printing is an organic blend of craft and hi-tech that is a million miles from the production line assembly methods pioneered by Henry Ford.
The idea is not new: 3D printers have been available commercially for three decades, and are routinely used to make prototypes by car manufacturers. I first become aware of the potential of what was then called “rapid prototyping” in 2004, when I visited the Renault F1 team works in Oxfordshire, where titanium and plastic components were solidified from a soup of ingredients scanned by a beam of blue laser light.
But what has changed is that 3D printers are becoming cheaper, smarter, better and more ubiquitous. One of the more remarkable developments came from Adrian Bowyer of the University of Bath, with RepRap, which stands for ''replicating rapid-prototyper”, on which I reported for this paper. RepRap had first been honed to print out everyday plastic goods such as door handles, sandals and coat hooks. The machine works like a printer but, rather than squirting ink on to paper, it puts down thin layers of molten biodegradable plastic which solidify to make objects.
Three years ago, however, the machine had succeeded in copying all of its own 3D-printed parts, which could be assembled into a new RepRap machine.
RepRap marked the birth of a domestic machine, a revolution analogous to that which saw the mainframe computer give way to the desktop PC. Recently it became available in kit form and Bowyer has already sold 100. All the while, the software and other ingredients are getting cheaper. There are rival kits, from Bits from Bytes to MakerBot. There are hackers adapting and improving them. As the technology mutates and evolves, the quality of the objects they can make gets better.
2011年12月6日星期二
2011年9月5日星期一
Plastic dentures hit the dentistry market
An increasing number of plastics companies are looking to develop products for the dental market. Amongst them is Dens3000, a Germany-based firm, which manufactures two-component PMMA teeth for dentures.
Dens3000 teeth, which the company says closely resemble natural human teeth in shape and structure, are made by injection moulding biocompatible and monomer-free "Densomid" modified PMMA plastic layers - comprising a core material and an outer "enamel" layer - of different hardness and colour.
According to patents covering the artificial tooth design, the core material can be a thermoplastic filled with siliceous glass, quartz and hydroxylapatite, as well as injection-mouldable polymer-bound ceramics.
Dens3000 says that as the thermoplastic tooth comes directly out of the injection mould and does not require further working, it is "highly cost-effective", costing five to ten times less than artificial teeth produced by the conventional thermosetting plastic ram extrusion method.
The 0.1-0.73g teeth are moulded with 2.5-5.6g shot weights in four 8-cavity moulds, in a cycle time of 22-30 seconds. A full denture set has 28 teeth chosen from 144 samples in 16 different shades, three sizes and various shapes.
The original developer, medical physicist Dr Reinhard Lohse, says: "I wanted to introduce a high-quality yet inexpensive plastic tooth onto the market and so make dentures that appeal to China and eastern European countries, where cost is an important issue."
Aside from cost benefits, Lohse says the PMMA teeth "are also not prone to plaque or crack formation".
Dens3000 teeth have a useful life of around five to ten years. Design features include a "finger", modelled on the human tooth root that stabilises the denture base, while an external palatal/lingual slot at the tooth base and a "retention bore", with integrated undercut, strengthen the denture base to "previously unattainable levels", he says.
Lohse further developed the tooth in partnership with the IWK materials technology and plastics processing institute at Kaiserslautern University, and the Regensburg and Homburg (Saar) university hospitals. After developing production tools and prototypes, Lohse set up the Dens3000 company in 2006.
The teeth are injection moulded on four electric-drive 150-tonne clamp-ing force Arburg Allrounder 520A machines, each equipped with two size 70 injection units. Earlier this year, Arburg said Dens3000 is expected to "shortly" reach full production capacity of 20 million teeth per year.
Dens3000 is also setting up a production site in China, according to the Protonia-IT foundation.
Initial Chinese production is ex-pected to amount to around 40 million teeth per year, with start-up scheduled for October 2011. The project contract is being managed by the DCTA German-Chinese technology exchange foundation.
Plastic materials are also making inroads in dental implants. Here, NT_Trading is using medical grade Vestakeep I PEEK from Evonik to make Dentokeep semi-finished implants, substituting titanium and cobalt-chromium metals. The material provides high implant elasticity and a similar flexing behaviour as bone, making the implants more comfortable for the patient.
Marc Knebel, medical implants sales and marketing manager at Evonik, says injection moulding already substitutes machined semi-finished parts when volumes are sufficiently high, cutting implant production costs.
Knebel adds that since 1999 PEEK has become the most important substitute material for titanium in orthopaedic, cardiovascular and spinal implants, a trend partly driven by the material's high resistance to gamma rays, transparency to x-rays and biocompatibility.
Dens3000 teeth, which the company says closely resemble natural human teeth in shape and structure, are made by injection moulding biocompatible and monomer-free "Densomid" modified PMMA plastic layers - comprising a core material and an outer "enamel" layer - of different hardness and colour.
According to patents covering the artificial tooth design, the core material can be a thermoplastic filled with siliceous glass, quartz and hydroxylapatite, as well as injection-mouldable polymer-bound ceramics.
Dens3000 says that as the thermoplastic tooth comes directly out of the injection mould and does not require further working, it is "highly cost-effective", costing five to ten times less than artificial teeth produced by the conventional thermosetting plastic ram extrusion method.
The 0.1-0.73g teeth are moulded with 2.5-5.6g shot weights in four 8-cavity moulds, in a cycle time of 22-30 seconds. A full denture set has 28 teeth chosen from 144 samples in 16 different shades, three sizes and various shapes.
The original developer, medical physicist Dr Reinhard Lohse, says: "I wanted to introduce a high-quality yet inexpensive plastic tooth onto the market and so make dentures that appeal to China and eastern European countries, where cost is an important issue."
Aside from cost benefits, Lohse says the PMMA teeth "are also not prone to plaque or crack formation".
Dens3000 teeth have a useful life of around five to ten years. Design features include a "finger", modelled on the human tooth root that stabilises the denture base, while an external palatal/lingual slot at the tooth base and a "retention bore", with integrated undercut, strengthen the denture base to "previously unattainable levels", he says.
Lohse further developed the tooth in partnership with the IWK materials technology and plastics processing institute at Kaiserslautern University, and the Regensburg and Homburg (Saar) university hospitals. After developing production tools and prototypes, Lohse set up the Dens3000 company in 2006.
The teeth are injection moulded on four electric-drive 150-tonne clamp-ing force Arburg Allrounder 520A machines, each equipped with two size 70 injection units. Earlier this year, Arburg said Dens3000 is expected to "shortly" reach full production capacity of 20 million teeth per year.
Dens3000 is also setting up a production site in China, according to the Protonia-IT foundation.
Initial Chinese production is ex-pected to amount to around 40 million teeth per year, with start-up scheduled for October 2011. The project contract is being managed by the DCTA German-Chinese technology exchange foundation.
Plastic materials are also making inroads in dental implants. Here, NT_Trading is using medical grade Vestakeep I PEEK from Evonik to make Dentokeep semi-finished implants, substituting titanium and cobalt-chromium metals. The material provides high implant elasticity and a similar flexing behaviour as bone, making the implants more comfortable for the patient.
Marc Knebel, medical implants sales and marketing manager at Evonik, says injection moulding already substitutes machined semi-finished parts when volumes are sufficiently high, cutting implant production costs.
Knebel adds that since 1999 PEEK has become the most important substitute material for titanium in orthopaedic, cardiovascular and spinal implants, a trend partly driven by the material's high resistance to gamma rays, transparency to x-rays and biocompatibility.
2011年4月24日星期日
Ellie Goulding's light-speed tour ended in San Francisco with a slow show
Those of you raised on neon ’60s-era psychadelia, bad ’70s-period schmaltz or even ’90s bass-pumping dance mixes don’t need to move your radio dial to understand how the music industry has changed.
It’s gone viral, which like most things infectious and techno-related, has both considerable up and downs.
This realization was brought home with some immediacy when I had to chance to talk to rising British music sensation Ellie Goulding, who was in San Francisco for a private show at the W Hotel, which has embarked on a marketing series that should set new parameters for all things hip and now.
Click on the photo to the right to see pictures of Goulding performing at the W Hotel. Scroll down to see video from the performance.
Goulding is living proof that in the new-world network, things happen faster. Three years ago, she was just another college student at the University of Kent with artistic leanings. Today she is the biggest pop star in the United Kingdom, and has spent the last six weeks touring America, with stops at the Coachella Music Festival, the Jimmy Kimmel show and her last performance Thursday here in San Francisco.
Goulding has considerable talent, as she proved when she wowed an audience of about 400 people with a set that included a cover of Elton John’s classic “Your Song.” And since she has shown to be a fairly prolific songwriter, she may have staying power, a general obstacle in today’s music business that tends to cast aside its favorite flavors almost as quickly as YouTube can post them.
When I caught up with her, Goulding was anything but the bubbling, bouncy pop princess that the BBC crowned her in 2010 when she was placed atop the network’s music star list and followed that up with a BRIT award for her debut album “Lights.”
She was tired. She was dragging. She was homesick. She was clearly sick of interviews. Her representative from Interscope, the industry’s gold standard for pop talent, was openly concerned about her mood, which was summed up with a pouty complaint about “not having enough time on my hands.”
It’s a lot for a 24-year-old who grew up in farming country just outside of Wales to take the world by storm. Fame can be so wearing.
“It’s been just madness,” she said of her rise up the charts. “The whole thing has been very surreal. Yet it’s been amazing as well.”
Youth being what it is, within an hour she rallied, arriving on stage a little tepid, and by her fourth song, radiating fun and friskiness, to the point that she started pulling fans on stage to dance with her. An energetic crowd was all a saucy blonde in hot pants needed to turn the place all Gaga.
Those in the music world noticed this some time ago, which is how Goulding ended up here for her last U.S. appearance. Three years ago, the brand-setting folks from the W Hotels kicked off a global music series featuring top acts around the world. They have used their high-end brand to promote the likes of Peter Bjorn and John, Natasha Bedingfield, Janelle Monae and Cee-Lo Green. Goulding was timed and ready.
“Because we’re a global company, we’re looking at music acts that go beyond a certain city or place,” W Music Director Michaelangelo L’Acqua said of the company’s Symmetry Live series. “We’re approaching this more as a lifestyle than as a particular music choice. We’re looking at people who push the envelope, artists on the cusp.”
That would be the edge of rising celebrity, and Goulding fits the bill almost as well as her leather boots. I don’t know how her label or W picked her audience, yet it’s fair to say they know how to cast a video. It was no place for a scruffy columnist.
Goulding’s appeal is that she seems more like a musician than a diva. She spent most of the show comfortably strumming a guitar.
But it’s nice to know that even while the music industry is convulsing with the world’s quicksilver media transformation, the artists still shine bright. Polydor and Sony can package “stars” anyway they like, but no amount of remixing can mask talent.
It’s gone viral, which like most things infectious and techno-related, has both considerable up and downs.
This realization was brought home with some immediacy when I had to chance to talk to rising British music sensation Ellie Goulding, who was in San Francisco for a private show at the W Hotel, which has embarked on a marketing series that should set new parameters for all things hip and now.
Click on the photo to the right to see pictures of Goulding performing at the W Hotel. Scroll down to see video from the performance.
Goulding is living proof that in the new-world network, things happen faster. Three years ago, she was just another college student at the University of Kent with artistic leanings. Today she is the biggest pop star in the United Kingdom, and has spent the last six weeks touring America, with stops at the Coachella Music Festival, the Jimmy Kimmel show and her last performance Thursday here in San Francisco.
Goulding has considerable talent, as she proved when she wowed an audience of about 400 people with a set that included a cover of Elton John’s classic “Your Song.” And since she has shown to be a fairly prolific songwriter, she may have staying power, a general obstacle in today’s music business that tends to cast aside its favorite flavors almost as quickly as YouTube can post them.
When I caught up with her, Goulding was anything but the bubbling, bouncy pop princess that the BBC crowned her in 2010 when she was placed atop the network’s music star list and followed that up with a BRIT award for her debut album “Lights.”
She was tired. She was dragging. She was homesick. She was clearly sick of interviews. Her representative from Interscope, the industry’s gold standard for pop talent, was openly concerned about her mood, which was summed up with a pouty complaint about “not having enough time on my hands.”
It’s a lot for a 24-year-old who grew up in farming country just outside of Wales to take the world by storm. Fame can be so wearing.
“It’s been just madness,” she said of her rise up the charts. “The whole thing has been very surreal. Yet it’s been amazing as well.”
Youth being what it is, within an hour she rallied, arriving on stage a little tepid, and by her fourth song, radiating fun and friskiness, to the point that she started pulling fans on stage to dance with her. An energetic crowd was all a saucy blonde in hot pants needed to turn the place all Gaga.
Those in the music world noticed this some time ago, which is how Goulding ended up here for her last U.S. appearance. Three years ago, the brand-setting folks from the W Hotels kicked off a global music series featuring top acts around the world. They have used their high-end brand to promote the likes of Peter Bjorn and John, Natasha Bedingfield, Janelle Monae and Cee-Lo Green. Goulding was timed and ready.
“Because we’re a global company, we’re looking at music acts that go beyond a certain city or place,” W Music Director Michaelangelo L’Acqua said of the company’s Symmetry Live series. “We’re approaching this more as a lifestyle than as a particular music choice. We’re looking at people who push the envelope, artists on the cusp.”
That would be the edge of rising celebrity, and Goulding fits the bill almost as well as her leather boots. I don’t know how her label or W picked her audience, yet it’s fair to say they know how to cast a video. It was no place for a scruffy columnist.
Goulding’s appeal is that she seems more like a musician than a diva. She spent most of the show comfortably strumming a guitar.
But it’s nice to know that even while the music industry is convulsing with the world’s quicksilver media transformation, the artists still shine bright. Polydor and Sony can package “stars” anyway they like, but no amount of remixing can mask talent.
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