Smart materials in additive manufacturing: state of the art and trends

Additive Manufacturing or 3D Printing has a great potential to develop significant advances in materials, printers’ technology, and processes.

Thus, the layer by layer manufacturing has existed for three decades and new developments recently appeared in smart materials.

Laboratories discovered ways to design and manufacture advanced structured materials and responsive materials used in multi-functional and high-performance products.

The current research and development efforts will have an impact on the traditional design and manufacturing process. 4D Printing announces a major modification in the product design and manufacturing process from static structures to dynamic structures like Shape Memory Material (SMM) with integrated functionalities.

This article presents a review of smart materials based on a classification of advanced structured materials and responsive materials before beginning a description of current applications. The use of multi-materials and the study of predictive models to simulate the responsive materials behaviour accelerate the smart materials development.

Read more:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17452759.2018.1518016

Bat Bot, Evonik, UAVs, and 3D Printing

Chemical company Evonik, like many other chemical companies, saw the opportunity there is in 3D printing and began manufacturing materials for the technology along with its other products a while ago.

Evonik’s work with 3D printing materials has taken it into the realm of biocompatible implants, potentially leading to more effective treatment for people with serious bone injuries or diseases.

UAVs go well with 3D printing, and that is a good new for anyone who, like Evonik, is considering using UAVs in large-scale maintenance operations, or for many, many other purposes.

¿Is 3D printing speeding adoption of UAVs across industries and across the world? Yes: 3D printing means UAVs are easier, faster and cheaper to manufacture, and because they’re so easy and inexpensive to create, bigger risks can be taken with their design and their usage, meaning more creative applications.

Recently, Evonik began looking into UAVs as part of its plant maintenance program. The company 3D printed a multicopter and flew it over its Wesseling site. The multicopter transmitted live images of the water tower and pipe bridges to a monitor on the control unit, demonstrating its efficacy in providing support for maintenance work. “Overall, the experiment showed that drones are ideally suited as support for projects such as maintenance work,” Evonik said.

Another good example of the good marriage between 3D Printing and UAV manufacturing is the partially 3D printed Bat Bot, a marvel of engineering, designed as an alternative to traditional quadcopters, to be used in urban areas or other cramped environments. Bat Bot was designed to be used for everything from search and rescue to personal assistance. ¿Also for military? Well, the military uses of Bat Bot can’t be ignored, as UAVs have already become critical for surveillance and supply delivery, and soldiers are beginning to 3D print their own with more frequency.