News: a fighter jet incorporating 3D-printed parts has successfully completed a test flight, making it the first combat aircraft produced using additive manufacturing.
Defence contractor BAE Systems announced yesterday that the Tornado aircraft fitted with components printed at a Royal Air Force base completed a successful test flight from the company’s airfield at Warton in Lancashire, UK, last month.
The firm’s combat engineering team is now using 3D printing to design and produce ready-made parts for four squadrons of Tornado GR4 aircraft at RAF Marham, a Royal Air Force station in Norfolk, UK. Components include protective covers for cockpit radios, support struts on the air intake door and protective guards for power take-off shafts.
Image showing construction of 3D-printed parts
They estimate that use of the technology will cut the cost of repairs, maintenance and service to the Royal Air Force by more than £1.2 million over the next four years, but also paves the way for using 3D printed parts in other military equipment.
“You are suddenly not fixed in terms of where you have to manufacture these things,” said Mike Murray, head of airframe integration at BAE Systems. “You can manufacture the products at whatever base you want, providing you can get a machine there, which means you can also start to support other platforms such as ships and aircraft carriers.”
“If it’s feasible to get machines out on the front line, it also gives improved capability where we wouldn’t traditionally have any manufacturing support,” he added.
News:3D-printed eye cells could “aid in the cure of blindness” according to researchers at The University of Cambridge, who have successfully printed adult nerve cells for the first time.
The researchers used an inkjet printer to print living retinal cells of adult rats, which could be built up and used to create replacements for defective eye tissues.
“This is the first time that cells from the adult central nervous system have been successfully printed,” professor Keith Martin told Dezeen. “We’ve demonstrated that you can take cells from the retina and you can effectively separate them out. These can be put in an inkjet printer and we can print those cells out in any pattern we like and we’ve shown that those cells can survive and thrive.”
“[This] is an important step in the development of tissue grafts for regenerative medicine and may aid in the cure of blindness,” said the article.
Martin hopes the development is a step towards treating retinal diseases such as glaucoma and macular degeneration, the two biggest causes of blindness in the UK.
Inkjet printer ejecting living retinal cells
Their study is the first to show that retinal ganglion cells, which transmit signals from the eye to the brain, and glial cells that support this process can be printed in layers on top of each other without damaging them.
“The retina is a multi-layered structure,” said Martin. “We’ve shown that we can put down at least two layers so we can put down glial cells and 3D print retinal ganglion cells over the top.”
The team found that the cells weren’t distorted when fired out of the printer at high speed, counter to predictions.
“Effectively you can fire these cells at about 30 miles per hour and they survive that perfectly well,” said Martin. “[This] was a real surprise to us because we didn’t expect the cells to be able to survive being fired out of a cannon.”
Having successfully printed a layer of nerve cells and a layer of support cells, Martin says that the next step will be to print multiple layers to build up a full retina.
“What we’re looking to do now is to develop this towards ways of repairing the retina,” he told us. “With time there’s no reason why you can’t print multiple different cell types in the same way that you print multiple different colours of ink. Building up 3D structures is the next step.”
Aparatus used to print eye cells
Martin envisages that this could be done either by engineering a retina on a synthetic membrane or similar support structure and implanting it into the eye or by developing tools that would allow the printed cells to be sprayed onto the back of the eye.
“There have been really amazing advances with stem cell transplantation in the eye so this is a complementary technology that may be able to solve the problems we have with retinal repair,” he said.
Although human trials are a way off yet, Martin believes that these advances are opening possibilities for curing not just retinal problems but other neural conditions.
“This is a step forward and we’re working hard to develop this technology for human use,” he said. “We’re looking to develop this for other parts of neural repair.”
Artist and designer Sebastian Errazuriz used twelve of his former flames as the inspiration for these 3D-printed shoes.
This image: Cry Baby. Main image: Honey
“I had been interested for years in creating a project that could revisit the relationships and women that had been so important at another time,” Errazuriz told Dezeen. “Like anyone else I have always found it quite incredible that when it comes to romantic relationships over the years, different people will represent a vital role in our lives even though later we might never see many of them again.”
Cry Baby
In 12 Shoes for 12 Lovers, each of the high-heeled shoes is designed for a woman Errazuriz previously had a relationship with, some of which lasted years and others just one night.
Heart Breaker
“The idea was to try and review those past sexual and romantic relationships from a distance of time,” said Errazuriz. “To expose yourself to scrutiny and judgment and invite others to check their own romantic relationships with their beauties, flaws, failures and success.”
Heart Breaker
The shape of each shoe represents how he remembers its counterpart: either by a nickname, a personal attribute or sexual behaviour.
The Boss
First in the series is Honey, a shoe formed from a yellow honeycomb pattern modelled on a girl that was too nice for him.
The Boss
Red shoes in the collection include Heart Breaker, which has an arrow through the back, Hot Bitch that appears to be melting and The Jetsetter with an aeroplane model forming a stiletto heel.
G.I. Jane
The green G.I. Jane shoe has a small soldier figurine on the toe, made for a girl who went commando on their date and who’s father was an army colonel.
The Virgin
A pure white effigy of the Virgin Mary forms the heel on another, with her garments flowing into the front of the design. Other models are named The Ghost, The Rock and The Boss.
The Rock
All of the shoes were digitally modelled then 3D-printed from PET plastic using a Makerbot Replicator 2.
Jet Setter
“It’s the first time we used a 3D printer,” Errazuriz told Dezeen. “The idea was to create digital sculptures on 3D programs that could then not only be used to fabricate one-off shoe sculptures that could be purchased by an art collector, but also have the potential to be turned into injection plastic moulds.”
Gold Digger
The collection is on show at a pop-up shop for Brazilian shoe brand Melissa in Miami until 6 January.
“The structure is an experiment in 3D printing using locally harvested salt from the San Francisco Bay to produce a large-scale, lightweight, additive manufactured structures,” said Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello of additive manufacturing startup Emerging Objects.
They explained that 500,000 tonnes of sea salt are harvested each year in the San Francisco Bay Area using power from the sun and wind. “The salt is harvested from 109-year-old salt crystallisation ponds in Redwood City,” they said. “These ponds are the final stop in a five-year salt-making process that involves moving bay water through a series of evaporation ponds. In these ponds the highly saline water completes evaporation, leaving 8-12 inches of solid crystallised salt that is then harvested for industrial use.”
In addition to being a renewable resource, the salt is inexpensive compared to commercially available printing materials and creates strong lightweight components.
They claim that their pavilion is the first to be printed from salt but draws on traditional techniques for building with the material. “No one has ever 3D-printed a building out of salt,” Rael told Dezeen. “However, there is a long tradition of architecture constructed of salt blocks, particularly in the Middle East and in desert environments.”
The 336 unique translucent panels of the Saltygloo structure were made in a powder-based 3D printing process where a layer of salt is applied then fixed in place selectively with a binding agent, before the next layer of salt is deposited and the process is repeated.
The panels were then connected together to form a rigid shell, further supported with lightweight aluminium rods flexed in tension.
“Each panel recalls the crystalline form of salt and is randomly rotated and aggregated to create a larger structure where all tiles in the structure are unique,” explained the designers.
Photography by Matthew Millman
“The form of the Saltygloo is drawn from the forms found in the Inuit igloos, but also the shapes and forms of tools and equipment found in the ancient process of boiling brine,” they added. “The translucent qualities of the material, a product of the fabrication process and the natural properties of salt, allow for natural light to permeate the space, highlight the assembly and structure, and reveal the unique qualities of one of humankind’s most essential minerals.”
Photography by Matthew Millman
Rael and San Fratello are professors of architecture and design at the University of California Berkeley and San Jose State University. They founded Emerging Objects six months to focus on printing architecture from a diverse set of materials, largely renewable or sources from industrial waste, including some they have developed themselves.
Besides salt, they are also working in 3D-printed wood, cement and paper, adapting old models of 3D-printers to suit their materials and processes. “Emerging Objects is interested in the creation of 3D printed architecture, building components and furnishings that can be seen as sustainable, inexpensive, stronger, smarter, recyclable, customisable and perhaps even reparable to the environment,” they explain.
The Saltygloo pavilion follows a piece of furniture printed in the same way and the firm is now gearing up to produce a large-scale architectural room. “We see possibilities to create building enclosures and building cladding systems, as well as free standing walls using the salt material,” Rael told us.
The project is on display at the Museum of Craft Design as part of an exhibition called New West Coast Design 2 until 5 January 2014.
Design team: Ronald Rael, Virginia San Fratello, Seong Koo Lee. Fabrication team: Ronald Rael, Seong Koo Lee, Eleftheria Stavridi Material development: Ronald Rael, Mark Kelly, Kent Wilson Special thanks: Professor Mark Ganter, Solheim Lab, University of Washington, Ehren Tool, Department of Art Practice, University of California Berkeley, Department of Architecture, University of California Berkeley, Department of Design, San Jose State University, Kwang Min Ryu and Chaewoo Rhee.
News:American lawmakers are rushing to amend a law banning firearms made entirely of plastic ahead of its expiration on Monday, amid fears that the spread of 3D-printing makes it easier to produce weapons that cannot be detected by airport security.
On Tuesday the US House of Representatives voted to simply renew the Undetectable Firearms Act, which was introduced in 1988 to prohibit plastic weapons that could slip past metal detectors and is due to expire on 9 December. The bill still has to be approved by the Senate and the president when they return from Thanksgiving recess on the same day, but now congressman Steve Israel has introduced a reform bill to alter it; this could delay proceedings and is unlikely to be passed before the act expires on Monday.
Although the law doesn’t specifically refer to 3D-printed weapons, it does affect them since most are made out of plastic; should the law expire without renewal or reformation, it would become legal to possess, manufacture or sell 3D-printed plastic guns without metal parts in the US.
The law has been renewed twice since its introduction, in 1998 and again in 2003. However, critics argue that it doesn’t go far enough now that increasingly widespread low-cost 3D-printing combined with blueprints for weapons shared online makes the domestic production of plastic weapons a reality. Israel argues that unless the law is altered this time, it would be legal to 3D-print a gun with metal parts that could be taken out before passing through security.
His proposed amendment aims to close this loophole by requiring specific major parts of a gun to be made from metal or a detectable material: the slide and receiver on a handgun, and the slide, receiver and barrel on a rifle. His bill also stipulates that these parts should not be removable without damaging the ability to fire the weapon.
The existing law makes it illegal to manufacture, own, transport, buy, or sell a firearm that cannot be picked up by metal detectors and x-ray machines. It requires that a plastic gun contains at least 3.7 ounces (105 grams) of metal, but does not stipulate that these parts cannot be removable.
“The Undetectable Firearms Act was always a kind of a fake law that never really affected anyone’s activity,” creator of the first 3D-printed gun Cody Wilson told Mashable. “Now it’s just used for bad faith roundabout gun prohibition, just because these people are scared that digital manufacturing makes more people have guns.”
London architect Daniel Widrig is presenting a collection of 3D-printed wearable sculptures during Design Miami this week, including one that looks like an exoskeleton.
Widrig‘s Kinesis collection explores the possibility of creating customised 3D-printed products based on a scan of the wearer’s body so they fit perfectly.
“We have been working with body related objects for a while now,” Widrig told Dezeen. “We originally worked with mannequins which we sculpted ourselves based on standard model sizes. Nevertheless we wanted to go a step further this time and create customised objects that literally merge with the human body.”
“Every body is unique and has its individual oddities, so 3D scanning is the only way to manage a total blending between a specific body’s topography and the designed geometry,” he added.
Using a digital model produced by the 3D scan as a starting point, Widrig analysed the parts of the body where the products would be worn and developed forms that are designed to “emphasise and exaggerate them.”
Two of the pieces are designed to be worn around the neck, with one of them intended to resemble “an inflated skin wrapping around the model’s breast and neck area.”
The other neckpiece is inspired by the expansions and contraction of muscular systems. These two objects take the form of a dense amalgamation of curving sections that resemble sinews or tendons.
The third object comprises a series of connected forms resembling vertebrae, which narrow into ribs that fit over the shoulder blades. “It resembles an exoskeleton growing out of the model’s spine,” said Widrig.
All of the wearable products were manufactured by Belgian 3D printing specialist Materialise from a polyamide/nylon powder using a selective laser sintering process.
Widrig explained that the process is ideal for fashion applications as it can be used to create flexible shapes with high levels of detailing and durability.
“Since our first fashion experiments in 2009, we tried to push the limits of SLS by reducing material thicknesses to a minimum where we wanted objects to be flexible, and gradually thickening up where we required more rigid zones,” he said.
The Kinesis collection is on show at design brand Luminaire’s Design+World event in Miami today.
Massachusetts design studio Nervous System has developed a method of 3D-printing jewellery and garments with articulated joints so they automatically change shape once removed from the printer (+ movie).
Jessica Rosenkrantz and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg of Nervous System describe their Kinematics project as an example of 4D printing, an emerging area of research which involves printing three-dimensional objects that automatically transform from one shape to another.
“4D printing refers to 3D-printing something in one shape that is intended to be in another shape,” creative director Jessica Rosenkrantz told Dezeen. “The design transforms into its final configuration without manual labour. The shape it is printed in may be advantageous for various reasons: faster, cheaper, or printing larger objects in a smaller volume.”
Nervous System are currently working on a dress that can be printed in one piece despite being much larger than the space inside the printer and have also developed a range of jewellery with articulated joints that automatically adapt to the form of the body despite being printed in flat sheets.
The designers first developed software to give any 3D model a flexible structure, made from tessellated triangles linked by built-in hinges. A second process then folds the model automatically to compress it into the smallest possible volume, optimising the use of space inside a 3D printer. The object simply unfurls into its intended shape once lifted out of the printer.
They named the process Kinematics after the branch of mechanics of the same name – also referred to as the geometry of motion – that describes the movement of objects but not its cause.
“We think the greatest advantage of Kinematics is that it can transform any three-dimensional shape into a flexible structure for 3D printing,” Rosenkrantz said. “The system then compresses the structure down through computational folding.”
To create the dress, a 3D-scan of a person’s body forms the basis for a digitally modelled garment, to which the tessellated pattern is applied. The rigidity and behaviour of the final dress can be controlled at this stage by altering the configuration of the triangular hinged mesh: the way the material will drape as a result is simulated on-screen. This digital model can then be folded into a much smaller shape using computer simulation software and printed in compressed form. When the dress is lifted out of the printer, it will unfurl into its intended shape.
“Compressed designs offer benefits not only for production but also for transport,” Rosenkrantz added. “It holds great promise for the creation of flexible wearables but could also be used to enable the production of other large-scale structures in today’s small-scale printers.”
Nervous System began developing the Kinematics concept last year in response to a brief set by mobile phone manufacturer Motorola to create customisable 3D-printed products.
The pair first produced a collection of nylon jewellery derived from the tessellated hinged triangles. The pieces emerge from the printer in a stack of flat sheets but the articulated structure allows them to to fit around the shape of the body.
They developed an online application so users can customise the jewellery designs themselves by selecting different module shapes, altering the density of components in selected areas, changing the profile of the design by dragging the outline around, specifying the size and deciding on the colour.
The price of the product is recalculated with every alteration and once happy the customer can order it to be produced by Nervous System. A second free application allows users to experiment with Nervous System’s templates and print the results at home.
Rosenkrantz and Louis-Rosenberg then developed the principle by adding the ability to fold the design down to its smallest possible spatial configuration. They intend to print their first dress in January.
News: British architect Adrian Priestman claims to have designed and installed the first 3D-printed components to be approved for use in the construction industry.
“This is truly the first architectural application of the 3D nylon sintered technology,” Priestman told Dezeen, referring to a decorative sheath he developed for a canopy on the roof of the refurbished 6 Bevis Marks office building in central London. “It’s architectural in so far as it’s been through an approval process and tried and tested, and actually installed in a building. It’s an approved product for use in the construction industry.”
Asked whether there are any other 3D printed building components currently approved for use in the construction industry, Priestman said: “Not that I am aware of. If you go to the offices of a major architect like Foster + Partners, they’ve got their own 3D-printing machine, but they’re not actually using the material to perform a function within a building; they’re using it as a modelling tool.”
While many studios have been experimenting with 3D-printing architectural structures and even working towards printing whole houses, Priestman believes his is the first real architectural application of 3D-printing because it has been approved for use by a major construction firm. “There may be someone who has done an installation, but this is a building component that has to stand for fifteen or twenty years; as long as everything that has been warrantied on the building,” he said.
Daigram showing shroud and steels in place
The 3D-printed sheaths were designed to surround a series of complex joints between columns and a web of arms that support the canopy’s EFTE plastic roof. The components were subjected to rigorous environmental testing before being included in the warranty for the roof by EFTE specialist Vector Foiltec, which was responsible for the installation of the canopy.
The architect became involved in the project as a consultant after Vector Foiltec decided that cast steel nodes normally used in this scenario would not fulfil the practical or aesthetic requirements of this project. “They’re not a hundred percent accurate and you can see the process left on the face of the steel,” explained Priestman.
Exploded diagram showing shroud and steels
The casings he designed respond to the individual nature of each intersection and were modelled using 3D computer software. They were then printed in sections using a selective laser sintering process and applied to cover the unsightly joints. “It is a purely decorative finish which makes the steel look like it is a cast node but in effect it’s not,” said Priestman. “So if the shroud fell off the steelwork would still stay standing.”
To prove to the client and the building contractor, Skanska, that the parts were suitable for this application, Priestman took samples to an accelerated testing facility. “We got it tested in 1000-mile-per-hour winds, extreme weather tested,” he said. “Once I had done that, the product was approved by the big contractors for the building.”
The architect says he is now working with Skanska’s innovation team on other potential uses for 3D printing within the building industry. “I’m pushing now to find places to use [3D printing]. It’s going to be driven from an engineering point of view,” added Priestman. “How big can we go? How much of a structural element is it? Let’s start putting it in the built environment.”
Designer Ross Lovegrove will present a series of 3D-printed 18 carat gold rings at Design Miami next week.
Lovegrove has created six rings, each of which will be produced in an edition of ten. The series, called Foliates, will be presented by the Louisa Guinness Gallery at Design Miami.
“These rings and this collection appear is as if the very last virgin leaves of a tree or plant have unfurled from one’s hand so that there is a relationship between the finger and the leaf, the gold appearing from the delicate void that I find so feminine and sensual and unattended,” said Lovegrove.
The flat rounded forms that flow from the bands are indented with digitally created patterns designed to mimic those found in nature. Lovegrove experimented with processes such as direct metal laser sintering and combining 3D-printing in wax with lost-wax casting to achieve these intricate surface details.
Half of the designs in the range have a single leaf-shaped element, while the others each include a symmetrical pair.
“They sit lightly, exploring the dynamics of space and the digital realm, converging organic design with the nature of naturalness that underlines my life’s commitment to sourcing the trinity that can exist so succinctly when technology, materials and form converge in the advanced times in which we live,” Lovegrove continued.
News: British company Fripp Design and Research has developed 3D-printed prosthetic eyes that could be produced much faster than existing handmade versions, reducing the cost by 97 percent.
Currently, prosthetic eyes are moulded in acrylic and painted by hand to match the patient’s eye colour. This process is time-consuming and expensive, whereas producing the eyes using a 3D printer enables up to 150 eyes to be made in an hour.
“To hand-make a prosthetic eye takes between four and eight hours depending on the individual painting the eye,” the company’s founder Tom Fripp told Dezeen. “Because only one eye can be done at a time, the waiting time in the UK for an eye is approximately ten weeks. With our system we can 3D print up to 150 in one hour and post process approximately five per hour, each one different.”
All of the components are printed from powder in full colour using a Z-Corp 510 machine before the resulting form is encased in resin. Compared to the existing handmade production method, this helps to remove any variation in quality and significantly reduces the cost of each eye, which is currently up to £3000 in the UK.
“Because each one is produced from the same system the consistency is the same and the cost is drastically reduced to approximately £100,” said Fripp.
By printing eyes in batches, each with a slightly different hue, Fripp pointed out that it is possible to accurately match the look of the prosthesis to the patient’s existing eye: “Although we have not perfected colour matching yet, because we can print so many in such a short space of time the colour change between each one is so slight that the chances of getting a good match is very good.”
The eyes are available in small, medium and large sizes and Fripp claimed that accurate reproduction of existing eyes is the next stage for the product’s development: “The technicality in customising an iris is very demanding and although we haven’t perfected it yet, we are working on it!”
Speaking to Dezeen at the 3D Printshow in London earlier this month, Fripp said the project was at an advanced stage of development and should be ready to implement “within 12 months.”
He added that there had been strong interest from India, where less advanced surgical procedures result in a high number of patients losing their eyes. “Because of the high number of relatively poor individuals in the country, they tend to simply go without,” said Fripp “However, our system will allow them to purchase a prosthesis.”
Images are courtesy of Manchester Metropolitan University and Fripp Design and Research.
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