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What moved the 3D printing world in 2017
Another year is coming to an end, which should of course also be reason enough for us as a 3D printing service provider to take a look back, namely at those developments and trends that were relevant for the 3D printing industry in 2017.
In this context, however, we would first like to make a note on our own behalf. We are very pleased to announce that 3D Activation has been included in the list of the 10 most popular 3D printing service providers of 2017 by the well-known online portal 3Druck.
The 3D printing year of 2017 started with concrete
The year 2017 started with an innovation in the field of concrete 3D printing. At the fair CONSTRUCTION 2017which took place from January 16th to 21st at the Munich Exhibition Center, researchers from the Faculty of Civil, Geo and Environmental Engineering at the Technical University of Munich presented concrete components that they had produced using two different 3D printing processes.
On the one hand, it was about the extrusion (in a kind of FDM process), in which fresh concrete is applied through a nozzle in strands, on the other hand around the (similar to SLS printing) Selective padsin which flowable material is deliberately introduced into thin layers of a dry bed and solidified locally.
Architectural 3D printing in Milan
The ABC Department of the Polytechnic of Milan (led by Roberto Naboni) impressed with a 3D-printed pavilion, an oversized model of the Trabeculae Pavolion, at the held in March this year Made Expo 2017. The design of this experimental architecture is based on the construction of bones, which was analyzed and calculated on the computer using the Pavilion Design algorithm.
This pavilion, whose structure is very light but at the same time very stable, was printed on large Delta 3D printers using the FDM/FFF process.
The Milan Design Week 2017, a showoff of the best international designers and architects, also took place in Milan in April. The MIT professor, architect and designer Neri Oxman, in cooperation with the Mediated Matter Group, also presented a pavilion from the 3D printer called “YET”, but made of glass instead of plastic. In fact, while 3D printing technologies were at the heart of the show anyway, this pavilion ended up being arguably the most talked about of this design week.
The 3D printing process used for this is based on the layers of molten glass and was specially developed for this purpose by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
3D printing at formnext 2017
About the second half of the year 3D printing event, the formnext 2017 (Frankfurt, November 14-17, 2017) we have already reported to you in various contexts, each in separate articles about the EOS P 500 and the HP Jet Fusion 3D 4210.
Another innovation at formnext 2017 would be one with a newly developed process called ATLAS (=Additive Technology Large Area System) working XXL printer from General Electrics (GE), which impressed with a build volume of 1.1 x 1.1 x 0.3 meters and is to be used in particular in the aerospace and automotive industries .
We at 3D Activation GmbH wish you all a Merry Christmas and good luck and success for 2018 and hope that you will continue to support us in the new year.
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