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Radio Flyer cuts ebike prototype time radically with Fuse X1 large-format SLS 3D printer

Radio Flyer cut prototype lead times for its Flyer Loop cargo ebike frame from two months to two days using Formlabs' new Fuse X1 SLS large-format 3D printer. "We can now print an entire Flyer Loop cargo ebike overnight and be gluing it together the next day," said Agostino LoBello, product development engineer at Radio Flyer. "I can iterate three times as often with nine times less labor." The Fuse X1 delivers production-quality parts with 50% lower costs and triple the throughput of comparable industrial systems, featuring automated powder handling and a compact, easy-to-install design. [Credit: Image courtesy of Formlabs]
View the video.

Compact industrial sand 3D printer

ExOne has launched the S-Print Pro, a compact industrial sand 3D printer that brings production-grade binder jetting to smaller foundries, pattern shops, and print service providers. Aimed at businesses competing on cost and flexibility, it handles low-volume casting, spare parts, and custom components. The system processes furan binder with silica sand, CeraBeads, or silicon carbide.
Learn more about this capable machine.

Fast-cure composite for aero and defense manufacturing

Toray Composite Materials America has launched 3960-FC, a fast-cure variant of its high-performance 3960 prepreg system for mission-critical aerospace and defense applications. This material reduces cure time by up to 45% while maintaining proven mechanical performance, stiffness, and exceptional toughness. It is highly compatible with automated manufacturing technologies like AFP and ATL, as well as traditional processing methods.
Learn more.

Metal finishing: With rising carbide prices, when cermet makes sense

As critical raw material access tightens, manufacturers are rethinking cutting tool usage. While essential, carbide is often unnecessary for finishing processes. Cermet -- a ceramic-metal composite -- offers an excellent alternative, delivering exceptional fracture and wear resistance for these specific machining stages.
Read the full article.

Full-color 3D-printing Design Guide from Xometry

With Xometry's PolyJet 3D-printing service, you can order full-color 3D prints easily. Their no-cost design guide will help you learn about different aspects of 3D printing colorful parts, how to create and add color to your models, and best practices to keep in mind when printing in full color. Learn how to take full advantage of the 600,000 unique colors available in this flexible additive process.
Get the Xometry guide.

Next-gen SLA materials rival traditional thermoplastics

Formlabs has announced two new SLA materials that bring 3D printing significantly closer to being a manufacturing method for end-use part production. Tough 1000 Resin and a significantly improved Tough 2000 Resin join Tough 1500 Resin, forming the new Tough Resin family. These resilient engineering materials stand up to harsh environments, impact, and repeated wear, all while delivering a dark, matte surface finish with crisp details when printed on Form 4 Series 3D printers.
Learn more.

Surface inspection: From Army depot to factory floor

Born from U.S. Army requirements for rotorcraft inspection, the GelSight Modulus 3D surface measurement system has surpassed 100 units sold to commercial and Department of Defense customers. The handheld, micron-scale tool with interchangeable probe tips delivers fast, high-res measurements in places traditional tools can't reach.
Read the full article.

What is Cold Metal Fusion?

Cold Metal Fusion is an open industry standard for sinter-based metal additive manufacturing. It combines polymer SLS design freedom with reliable debinding and sintering workflows, enabling complex geometries, lightweighting, lattice structures, conformal cooling channels, and high-precision metal parts with predictable shrink behavior. Now available from TriMech Group, this process offers a faster, cost-effective way to produce strong, high-performance metal parts.
Learn more from TriMech Group.

Metal 3D printing: EOS adds four new materials

Industrial 3D-printing supplier EOS has added four new metal additive manufacturing materials to its portfolio: an iron-nickel alloy that boasts stability under fluctuating temps, a nickel alloy with high strength and extreme corrosion resistance, a low-alloyed steel prized for its high toughness and strength, and an industrial-grade stainless steel. Each has been optimized for EOS Laser Powder Bed Fusion systems.
Get all the details.

New materials and finishes from Quickparts

Quickparts has introduced DuraKor, ThermaKor, and vapor smoothing to expand its production-capable materials and finishing portfolio. The new plastics provide polypropylene-like toughness, chemical resistance, and high-temperature stability, while vapor smoothing improves sealing and surface quality. Together, these capabilities help engineers validate designs, refine performance, and transition efficiently from prototypes to scalable manufacturing.
Learn more.

What's the latest in SLA 3D printing?

Learn about the latest offerings in SLA printing from 3D Systems, including the introduction of SLA 825 Dual, the company's most advanced large-frame Stereolithography printer. Other new products include ArrayCast investment casting software that allows users to effortlessly create customized casting trees (complete with configurable runners, sprues, and end effectors), Accura SbF (the latest SLA casting resin), and Accura Xtreme Black (which delivers low shrinkage, large, functional SLA prototype parts with sharp detail).
Learn about all the new 3D Systems products.

meviy cuts CNC milling lead times to just 4 days

meviy, the on-demand custom parts manufacturing service developed by MISUMI Group, has upgraded its Expedite+ service with improved lead times for CNC Milled parts. Customers can now have their parts shipped in as few as four days through meviy's fastest delivery option. The enhanced service helps manufacturers and engineers stay on schedule when projects are behind or production is interrupted. Supported materials include steels and aluminums. Check out their instant quoting too.
Learn more.

Top Tech Tip: How do you 3D print STL files?

Learn the basics of 3D printing STL files -- the files that serve as the digital foundation for 3D printing -- and a whole lot more from the experts at Xometry. These files have advantages, of course, but did you know they have disadvantages too? Also learn about STL tools and programs, and how to reduce file size or even repair a file you are having trouble with.
Read the Xometry article.

When metals can't survive: Machined ceramics as an alternative

Technical Ceramics are so hard and wear resistant that they cannot be machined with conventional tools -- but they can outlast and outperform other materials in demanding or harsh applications. INSACO's proprietary diamond grinding process and specialized techniques developed over many decades allow the company to produce and document parts to exacting specifications consistently. Learn all about the alternatives you have when metals just can't take it.
Read the INSACO article.

Metal 3D printing: Right at your desktop

From prototyping to tooling or batch production of end-use parts, the Studio System 2 from Desktop Metal brings metal 3D printing to any office, studio, or lab setting. This powder- and laser-free system consists of an easy-to-adopt two-step process: print using pre-bound metal rod feedstock and then sinter. It requires minimal training and operator intervention. Combined with next-gen Separable Supports and a software-controlled workflow, the Studio System makes metal 3D printing simpler than ever. This platform offers more materials than any other metal extrusion 3D-printing system on the market. They include Inconel 625, titanium (Ti64), copper, tool steels, and stainless steels.
View the video and learn more.

Tough gel stretches to 21 times its length, recoils, and heals itself

A team of experts in mechanics, materials science, and tissue engineering at Harvard have created an extremely stretchy and tough gel that may pave the way to replacing damaged cartilage in human joints, among other uses.

Called a hydrogel, because its main ingredient is water, the new material is a hybrid of two weak gels that combine to create something much stronger. Not only can this new gel stretch to 21 times its original length, but it is also exceptionally tough, self-healing, and biocompatible -- a valuable collection of attributes that opens up new opportunities in medicine and tissue engineering.

The material, its properties, and a simple method of synthesis are described in the September 6 issue of Nature.

The researchers pinned both ends of the new gel in clamps and stretched it to 21 times its initial length before it broke. [Photo courtesy of Jeong-Yun Sun.]

 

 

"Conventional hydrogels are very weak and brittle -- imagine a spoon breaking through jelly," explains lead author Jeong-Yun Sun, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). "But because they are water-based and biocompatible, people would like to use them for some very challenging applications like artificial cartilage or spinal disks. For a gel to work in those settings, it has to be able to stretch and expand under compression and tension without breaking."

Sun and his coauthors were led by three faculty members: Zhigang Suo, Allen E. and Marilyn M. Puckett Professor of Mechanics and Materials at SEAS and a Kavli Scholar at the Kavli Institute for Bionano Science and Technology at Harvard; Joost J. Vlassak, Gordon McKay Professor of Materials Engineering and an Area Dean at SEAS; and David J. Mooney, Robert P. Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering at SEAS and a Core Faculty Member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.

To create the tough new hydrogel, they combined two common polymers. The primary component is polyacrylamide, known for its use in soft contact lenses and as the electrophoresis gel that separates DNA fragments in biology labs; the second component is alginate, a seaweed extract that is frequently used to thicken food.

Separately, these gels are both quite weak -- alginate, for instance, can stretch to only 1.2 times its length before it breaks. Combined in an 8:1 ratio, however, the two polymers form a complex network of crosslinked chains that reinforce one another. The chemical structure of this network allows the molecules to pull apart very slightly over a large area instead of allowing the gel to crack.

The alginate portion of the gel consists of polymer chains that form weak ionic bonds with one another, capturing calcium ions (added to the water) in the process. When the gel is stretched, some of these bonds between chains break -- or "unzip," as the researchers put it -- releasing the calcium. As a result, the gel expands slightly, but the polymer chains themselves remain intact. Meanwhile, the polyacrylamide chains form a grid-like structure that bonds covalently (very tightly) with the alginate chains.

Therefore, if the gel acquires a tiny crack as it stretches, the polyacrylamide grid helps to spread the pulling force over a large area, tugging on the alginate's ionic bonds and unzipping them here and there. The research team showed that even with a huge crack, a critically large hole, the hybrid gel can still stretch to 17 times its initial length.

The researchers used a razor blade to cut a 2-cm notch across the gel. In the image above (left), the gel has been stretched very slightly so that the notch is visible. This damaged gel was still able to stretch to 17 times its initial length without breaking. [Photo courtesy of Jeong-Yun Sun.]

 

 

 

 

Importantly, the new hydrogel is capable of maintaining its elasticity and toughness over multiple stretches. Provided the gel has some time to relax between stretches, the ionic bonds between the alginate and the calcium can "re-zip," and the researchers have shown that this process can be accelerated by raising the ambient temperature.

Video caption: The short video above shows a metal ball dropping onto a very thin sheet of hydrogel without rupturing it.

The researchers' combined expertise in mechanics, materials science, and bioengineering enabled the group to apply two concepts from mechanics -- crack bridging and energy dissipation -- to a new problem.

"The unusually high stretchability and toughness of this gel, along with recovery, are exciting," says Suo. "Now that we've demonstrated that this is possible, we can use it as a model system for studying the mechanics of hydrogels further, and explore various applications."

"It's very promising," Suo adds.

Beyond artificial cartilage, the researchers suggest that the new hydrogel could be used in soft robotics, optics, artificial muscle, as a tough protective covering for wounds, or "any other place where we need hydrogels of high stretchability and high toughness."

Published October 2012

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