The Recycler Issue 316

WIDE FORMAT COLUMN
1986, later founding 3D Systems
Corporation.
Since this process is almost 40 years
old now, there are many who have seen
use of stereolithography or laser
sintering in the manufacture of motor
vehicles. Now manufacturers are
starting to pick up speed in using 3D
printing in design, development and
manufacture. It’s most outstanding
trait is to make the time shorter for
product development in addition to
cheapening the costs for prototyping
by printing prototypes instead of
outsourcing it.
Fleets of printers experiment with
different designs. Companies such as
General Motors, Chrysler, Mitsubishi,
Mercedes Benz and Ford use 3D
printing technology.
In a 2015 article in Automotive
Megatrends magazine, Ford was said to
“apply the technology to prototype
parts that are of such strength that
they are installed on running test
vehicles. The company uses engine
parts, such as intake manifolds, from
3D printing white silica powder, to
install it in its running test vehicles.
With the use of 3D printed prototypes
of components such as cylinder heads
Wide-Format news in brief
THE RECYCLER • ISSUE 316 • MARCH 2019
and intake cylinders in test vehicles,
Ford is successful in avoiding the
requirement of investment castings
and tooling, and in turn saving
significant amount of time and
dollars.”
Other advancements include using
innovative materials. Chrysler uses
transparent plastic in 3D prototyping
so engineers can view inside the part,
such as whether a gear will be welllubricated
in the design. Many of the
parts, though, still need welded.
Metal, Automotive Megatrends
magazine says in the article, is being
used by manufacturers such as
BMW, which used a 3D-printing
stereolithography process to make a
metal water wheel pump for a
racing car.
Still, there are drawbacks, the article
says, including that its “current speed
cannot match the production volume
requirements, thus inhibiting the use
of this technology for direct part
manufacturing. This in a large way
restricts the use of 3D printing for mass
production. While there is ongoing
research into high-speed additive
manufacturing, it still remains a
concept.”
R
Fusion coming more within reach
Every day, milestones are being
reached in use of energy. These
technologies may some day power the
equipment we use in everyday living,
or even help Man reach into space.
If fusion becomes an achievable
power source, multiple scientific goals
will be achieved. The Tokamak
reactor, often touted as a possible
system for fusion power plants or
propulsion for outer-space
exploration, is a fusion reactor that
uses powerful magnetic fields to trap
super-heated plasma in a circular
doughnut-like shape before it propels
the ship with the ions.
The experiments at Princeton in the
USA were shut down in 1997. Now
Futurism magazine Writer Jon
Christian writes about solutions to its
Sun-like temperatures to heat the
plasma with United Kingdom
researchers finding a way to keep it all
cooler by venting and making its path
around the “doughnut” longer.
An international team is working
on ITER, a French experimental
reactor, and the hope is to use the new
exhaust system on this reactor,
Christian writes that the team hopes
it will be the first reactor in history
to produce net energy and a
meaningful step toward practical
fusion power plants.
Atomic Energy Authority executive
director Ian Chapman, speaking to
Reuters, said, “We’re here to
commercialize fusion power. I mean,
fusion offers this enormous potential.
There’s no long-lived radioactive
waste, there’s effectivel inexhaustible
fuel, there’s no carbon emission.
It sounds perfect, but it’s really hard
to do.”
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