A Look at 3-D Printing from "The Future of Everything - The Wall Street Journal
A recent podcast entitled "Get Ready for 3-D Printed Everything" looks at the current state of 3-D printing and where the technology is headed.
Currently, 3-D printing is limited by 3 things; materials, time, and understanding. Presently the main material being used in 3-D printing is soft plastics, which aren't strong enough for industrial use. The time it takes to produce a single, elaborate object, roughly the size of a golf ball is 9 hours, making too inefficient for any type of large-scale replication. The other, less obvious determent is a clear understanding throughout most industries of just what the technology is and what its potentials are.
The podcast goes on to look at those potentials by investigating current research into future applications such as using carbon fiber as the material used in 3-D printing, which would serve a wide variety of applications like the fabrication of replacement parts for industrial machinery, mass-production replication through improvment to the speeds at which things can be printed, and human organ replication through the printing of cell structures.
The investigation shows that while the barriers to advancement are being tackled, it may be awhile before all these limitations are overcome and 3-D printing takes its place alongside the other 2 pillars of the fourth revolution, automation and artificial intelligence.
Currently, 3-D printing is limited by 3 things; materials, time, and understanding. Presently the main material being used in 3-D printing is soft plastics, which aren't strong enough for industrial use. The time it takes to produce a single, elaborate object, roughly the size of a golf ball is 9 hours, making too inefficient for any type of large-scale replication. The other, less obvious determent is a clear understanding throughout most industries of just what the technology is and what its potentials are.
The podcast goes on to look at those potentials by investigating current research into future applications such as using carbon fiber as the material used in 3-D printing, which would serve a wide variety of applications like the fabrication of replacement parts for industrial machinery, mass-production replication through improvment to the speeds at which things can be printed, and human organ replication through the printing of cell structures.
The investigation shows that while the barriers to advancement are being tackled, it may be awhile before all these limitations are overcome and 3-D printing takes its place alongside the other 2 pillars of the fourth revolution, automation and artificial intelligence.
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