http://www.economist.com/node/18114221
Three-dimensional printing from digital designs will transform manufacturing
and allow more people to start making things
FILTON, just outside Bristol, is where Britain's fleet of Concorde
supersonic airliners was built. In a building near a wind tunnel on the same
sprawling site, something even more remarkable is being created. Little by
little a machine is "printing" a complex titanium landing-gear bracket,
about the size of a shoe, which normally would have to be laboriously hewn
from a solid block of metal. Brackets are only the beginning. The
researchers at Filton have a much bigger ambition: to print the entire wing
of an airliner.
Far-fetched as this may seem, many other people are using three-dimensional
printing technology to create similarly remarkable things. These include
medical implants, jewellery, football boots designed for individual feet,
lampshades, racing-car parts, solid-state batteries and customised mobile
phones. Some are even making mechanical devices. At the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT), Peter Schmitt, a PhD student, has been
printing something that resembles the workings of a grandfather clock. It
took him a few attempts to get right, but eventually he removed the plastic
clock from a 3D printer, hung it on the wall and pulled down the
counterweight. It started ticking.
More......................
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