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Engineering challenge: Which 3D-printed parts will fade?

How does prolonged exposure to intense UV light impact 3D-printed plastics? Will they fade? This is what Xometry's Director of Application Engineering, Greg Paulsen, set to find out. In this video, Paulsen performs comprehensive tests on samples manufactured using various additive processes, including FDM, SLS, SLA, PolyJet, DLS, and LSPc, to determine their UV resistance. Very informative. Some results may surprise you.
View the video.

Copper filament for 3D printing

Virtual Foundry, the company that brought us 3D-printable lunar regolith simulant, says its popular Copper Filamet™ (not a typo) is "back in stock and ready for your next project." This material is compatible with any open-architecture FDM/FFF 3D printer. After sintering, final parts are 100% pure copper. Also available as pellets. The company says this is one of the easiest materials to print and sinter. New Porcelain Filamet™ available too.
Learn more and get all the specs.

Copper foam -- so many advantages

Copper foam from Goodfellow combines the outstanding thermal conductivity of copper with the structural benefits of a metal foam. These features are of particular interest to design engineers working in the fields of medical products and devices, defense systems and manned flight, power generation, and the manufacture of semiconductor devices. This product has a true skeletal structure with no voids, inclusions, or entrapments. A perennial favorite of Designfax readers.
Learn more.

When glass or plastic can't cut it: Transparent ceramics solve critical design challenges

Complex designs are still possible when grinding and polishing Fused Silica or Sapphire. Ceramic properties such as wear, abrasion resistance, and strength of these optical materials can be a designer's dream solution when high temperatures or severe environments rule out standard optical glass or plastic. INSACO is a machine shop specializing in ultra-hard and extreme materials.
→ Contact Jackson Evans, Sales Engineer at INSACO jpe@insaco.com.
→ Learn more about INSACO materials and capabilities.

New aero and defense PEKK-based FDM polymers from Stratasys

Stratasys has partnered with top aerospace and defense companies to develop two newly qualified materials for 3D printing. Antero 800NA is a PEKK-based FDM polymer with excellent physical and mechanical properties for demanding applications. Antero 840CN03 is a high-performance PEKK-based FDM polymer with electrostatic dissipative (ESD) properties. These new advanced industrial solution materials were rigorously qualified in collaboration with Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Blue Origin, Raytheon, Naval Air Systems Command, the National Institute for Aviation Research, United States Air Force, BAE, and Stratasys Direct Manufacturing.
Learn more.

EOS expands its Nickel superalloys for 3D printing

EOS, a leading supplier of manufacturing solutions for industrial 3D printing, has added two new metal additive manufacturing materials: EOS NickelAlloy IN738 and EOS NickelAlloy K500, both delivering excellent performance, part properties, and value to a variety of industries that leverage EOS Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LBPF) 3D-printing technology. The IN738 superalloy is aimed at high-strength, high-stress energy and turbomachinery applications, while the K500 superalloy is a cost-effective, corrosion-resistant option for chemical, maritime, and space industries.
Learn more.

CNC machining: How to avoid high costs on thin walls

Parts that are light and strong are crucial to nearly every industry. To achieve better performance without risking part failure, parts must maintain a specific wall-height-to-thickness ratio and wall-height-to-length ratio. Additionally, some geometries and supports can support thin walls to achieve a lighter component weight. Dive deeper into the cost drivers behind CNC-machined thin walls in this Xometry design-for-manufacturing article.
Read the full article.

Eco-friendly thermoplastic: Light, rigid, strong, damping

Polyplastics has launched PLASTRON^® LFT (Long Fiber-Reinforced Thermoplastic) RA627P, an eco-friendly composite of polypropylene (PP) resin and long cellulose fiber that delivers low density, high specific rigidity, high impact strength, and excellent damping for a range of applications including audio components and housings of industrial components. LFT exhibits 10% lower density than 30% short glass fiber-reinforced PP resin, roughly the same flexural modulus, and a specific rigidity that is higher.
Learn more.

Sound-dampening foam with an eco edge

BASF has introduced Basotect^® EcoBalanced melamine foam, a material that helps to reduce the product carbon footprint (PCF) of many sound-absorption applications in the transportation, building, and construction industries. This easy, drop-in solution has an up to 50% lower PCF than the respective BASF standard grades but demonstrates the same material performance. Applications include engine covers, wall and ceiling sound absorbers, HVAC parts, and air cleaners.
Learn more.

Fastest large-format SLA 3D printer in the world

Built on Formlabs' next-generation Low Force Display print engine, the new Form 4L SLA 3D printer delivers unmatched reliability with a 99% print success rate compared to other SLA 3D printers. These benefits, combined with a build volume nearly 5x the size of Form 4, allow Form 4L users to solve big problems and print smaller parts at high volume. Large-scale prints finished in under six hours.
Learn more.

Keypad teardown and design insights with Autodesk and Xometry

Take a deep dive into the second revision of the macro keypad developed for Autodesk University's Factory Experience 2024 in this exclusive, on-demand webinar hosted by Xometry's Greg Paulsen and Autodesk Fusion's Jonathan Odom. This presentation features a live teardown of the keypad, showcasing how the design team addressed challenges and elevated the product. No registration required.
Watch this Xometry webinar at your convenience.

Tube cutting and bending design guide: Xometry

Xometry's no-cost tube design guide offers design tips and tricks for laser-cut tube parts, including: minimums, tolerances, and sizes. The guide also covers important rules for mandrel tube bending, such as tolerancing, distance between bends, bend center line radius, types of bends to avoid, and more. Incredibly handy. If you need parts, Xometry can help with that too. It's easy to get a quote.
Learn more.

SPEE3D develops ultra-corrosion-resistant alloy
-- a game-changer for maritime additive manufacturing

Australian manufacturer SPEE3D has developed two grades of an ultra-corrosion-resistant Nickel Aluminum Bronze alloy that are compatible with its Cold Spray Additive Manufacturing technology. The powder material is a game-changer for maritime OEMs and the U.S. Navy, as it will help with supply chain delays and keep critical maritime systems operational.
Read the full article.

New polymer bearings are PFAS- and PTFE-free

igus has developed a new polymer bearing material called iglide JPF that is free of both per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). This innovation marks an important step in the company's efforts to create sustainable alternatives to conventional plain bearings. JPF is a dry-running, wear-resistant polymer that offers comparable friction and wear performance to iglide J. It delivers high wear resistance and durability.
Learn more.

New high-speed PSLA 270 printer from 3D Systems

The all-new PSLA 270 projector-based polymer 3D-printing platform and associated new materials from 3D Systems enable faster production times for a wide range of applications. This machine's high throughput and accuracy make it ideal for industries like healthcare, aerospace, automotive, and manufacturing, where precise and durable components are critical. Complementary Wash and Cure systems streamline post-processing and ensure high-quality finished parts.
Learn more including materials and build sizes.

MIT researchers make surfaces that are easier to cool under extreme heat

By Nancy W. Stauffer, MITEI

When an earthquake and tsunami struck Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011, knocking out emergency power supplies, crews sprayed seawater on the reactors to cool them -- to no avail.

One possible reason: Droplets can't land on surfaces that hot. Instead, they instantly begin to evaporate, forming a thin layer of vapor and then bouncing along it -- just as they would in a hot cooking pan.

Now, MIT researchers have come up with a way to cool hot surfaces more effectively by keeping droplets from bouncing. Their solution: Decorate the surface with tiny structures and then coat it with particles about 100 times smaller. Using that approach, they produced textured surfaces that could be heated to temperatures at least 100 deg C higher than smooth ones before droplets bounced. The findings are reported this week in the journal Applied Physics Letters.

"Our new understanding of the physics involved can help people design textured surfaces for enhanced cooling in many types of systems, improving both safety and performance," says Kripa Varanasi, the Doherty Associate Professor of Ocean Utilization in MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering and the lead author of the study.

The goal for Varanasi and his co-authors, recent MIT PhD recipient Hyuk-Min Kwon and former MIT postdoc J.C. Bird, was to find a way to increase the temperature at which water droplets start bouncing. Past research indicated that rough materials would add more surface area to hold onto the droplets, making it harder for them to bounce. But the research team discovered that not just any rough surface will do.

Through systematic studies using well-defined surfaces, they found that installing microscale silicon posts on a silicon surface raised the temperature at which droplets transitioned from landing to bouncing. But it worked best when the posts were relatively diffuse. As the posts got closer together, the transition temperature gradually dropped until it was no higher than that of a smooth surface.

"That result was surprising," says Bird, who is now an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Boston University. "Common knowledge suggests that the closely spaced posts would provide greater surface area, so would hold onto the droplets to a higher temperature."

By analyzing the physics involved, the researchers concluded that closely spaced posts do provide more surface area to anchor the droplets, but they also keep the vapor that forms from flowing. Trapped by adjacent posts, the accumulating vapor layer under a droplet builds up pressure, pushing the droplet off. When the force of the vapor exceeds the attractive force of the surface, the droplet starts to float.

"Bringing the posts closer together increases surface interactions, but it also increases resistance to the vapor leaving," Varanasi says.

To decouple those two effects, the researchers coated the surface featuring spaced-out microscale posts with nanoscale particles. This "micro-nano" surface texture provides both the extensive surface area of the tiny particles and the wide spacing of the posts to let the vapor flow.

Experiments confirmed their approach. When they sprayed water on their micro-nano surfaces at 400 deg C -- the highest temperature their experimental setup could provide -- the droplets quickly wet the surfaces and boiled. Interestingly, under the same conditions, the droplets did not wet the surfaces of samples with either the microscale posts or the nanoscale texture, but did wet the surfaces of samples with both.

In addition to nuclear safety systems, this work has important implications for systems such as steam generators, industrial boilers, fire suppression, and fuel-injected engines, as well as for processes such as spray cooling of hot metal. One application now being considered by Varanasi and his colleagues is electronics cooling. "The heat fluxes in electronics cooling are skyrocketing," Varanasi says. It might be a job for efficient spray cooling -- "if we can figure out how to fit a system into the small space inside electronic devices."

The research was supported by a Young Faculty Award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the MIT Energy Initiative, and the MIT-Deshpande Center.

Published November 2013

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