Materials

There is a lot going on with 3D printing materials! Recently, a team of researchers has succeeded in 3D printing with silica aerogel, the most insulating material of all. Known for being rather brittle, this material is often reinforced with…

A team of researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) has developed a material that can be 3D printed into any shape and pre-programmed with reversible shape memory. In other words, once a…

Material extrusion, also known as Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) technology is still the most widely used technology in the AM market. In recent years, this segment of AM has undergone many changes: there has been an increase in industrial machines…

The authorized intermediary for the U.S. Department of Defense, TechLink, announced that U.S. Navy scientists had been issued a 20-year patent for a 3D printable material made of a marine-base biodegradable polymer which breaks down over time. This is very…

At the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems (IKTS) in Germany, researchers have developed a Multi Material Jetting system that is capable of additively manufacturing parts that integrate multiple materials, including high-performance materials such as ceramics and metals. What…

Innovation is second nature to the additive manufacturing sector, and one recent project that illustrates exactly this is Illusory Material. Conceived by industrial designer Jiani Zeng and computational designer Honghao Deng during their time at MIT, the aim of this…

The ASA (Acrylonitrile Styrene Acrylate) material is an amorphous thermoplastic similar to ABS, although the main difference is that it is an acrylic elastomer and ABS is a butadiene elastomer. ASA is a petroleum derivative and is considered an engineering…

As 3D printing is becoming more and more wide spread, various FDM machines are being produced to accomodate the needs of manufacturers and customers. For these machines there are the “standard” plastics such as pure ABS, PLA and PET.  However, there are…

It started with two innovation-oriented companies deciding to become partners: a manufacturer of ultrafast stereolithography 3D printers, Nexa3D, and an international conglomerate Henkel, who is also a leading supplier of high impact additive materials. A few days ago, they announced…

Today’s additive manufacturing sector is characterized by a wide variety of materials, from plastics and metals to ceramics and concrete. If we look at the family of polymers, the diversity is great, with many thermoplastics that are more or less…

Polyoxymethylene or acetal, better known by the abbreviation POM, is a thermoplastic and belongs to the family of polyacetals. Discovered in 1920, it is now one of the most widely used materials in injection moulding, after polypropylene (PP) and polyamide…

At the University of Cambridge, researchers have just started a three-year research programme to accelerate the manufacture of 3D printed metal parts using computer-generated holography. This photographic process makes it possible to reproduce the relief of objects using the interference…