Metal additive manufacturing is increasingly finding its way into the defense industry and the armed forces worldwide. It’s crucial for the repair or maintenance of equipment, shortening lead times of traditional supply chains, and for field deployment, producing parts directly…
For decades, manufacturing has mostly been controlled by countries with huge factories, lower labor costs, and industrial systems that took years, sometimes decades, to build. But Utrecht University human geographers Nicola Cortinovis and Joric Donnet believe 3D printing could start to change…
In modern agriculture, uptime matters. Irrigation systems need to keep running during key growing periods, and even short interruptions can affect crops and reduce yields. Over the past few years, 3D printing has started to play a practical role in minimizing downtime…
For much of the last decade, many have pushed an unjustifiably optimistic view of global energy consumption, along the lines of, fossil fuels are “on their way out.” Sadly, this is still a delusion that stands very much in the…
For years, the conversation around additive manufacturing followed a predictable script. Engineers would acknowledge its usefulness for prototyping – faster iterations, cheaper design validation, no tooling to worry about – and then pivot back to injection moulding or CNC machining…
I still remember picking up my first-ever pair of 3D-printed sneakers. This was deep in the Adidas Futurecraft 4D era in 2017. Back then, they teamed up with Silicon Valley company Carbon for a new tech called Digital Light Synthesis (or DLS). Liquid resin…
A shift is underway in drone manufacturing. Government programs like the U.S. Department of War’s Drone Dominance, a $1.1 billion effort to deliver low-cost, one-way attack (OWA) sUAS at scale, are driving urgent demand for drones that are inexpensive, resilient, and…
Walk into any serious print farm or university lab, and you’ll find two things: impressive output, and a bin of 3D printing quietly filling up in the corner. That bin rarely gets talked about. We obsess over print speed, nozzle…
I’ve been tracking the US Navy’s additive manufacturing (AM) buildup as it relates to submarines for a while now, and even amidst the AM efforts that all the branches have embarked upon throughout this decade, the metal AM program for subs remains…
At Milan Bergamo Airport, WASP has helped 3D print a new airport services structure. The small building, named Ol Casél, serves as a rest and relaxation area for customs staff. With toilets and a seating area, it is designed to give them…