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Imagine designing a product on your computer, pressing the print key, and the printer spits out a prototype.

Engineers have been able to create models directly from computer-aided design (CAD) for almost two decades. However, a professor from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Emanuel Sachs and his colleagues have developed a relatively new technology that can create complicated, full-scale products directly from computer drawings.

Three-Dimensional Printing is the rapid and flexible production of prototype parts, end-use parts, and tools directly from a CAD model. 3DP™ can create parts of any geometry, and out of any material, including ceramics, metals, polymers and composites. Furthermore, it can exercise local control over the material composition, microstructure, and surface texture.

How does it work? From a CAD model of the desired part, a slicing algorithm draws detailed information for every layer. Each layer begins with a thin distribution of powder spread over the surface of a powder bed. Using a technology similar to ink-jet printing, a binder material selectively joins particles where the object is to be formed. A piston that supports the powder bed and the part-in-progress lowers so that the next powder layer can be spread and selectively joined. This layer-by-layer process repeats until the part is completed. Following a heat treatment, unbound powder is removed, leaving the fabricated part.

MIT Alpha Machine Credit: MIT

Printed part emerging from powder Credit: MIT

Article taken from MIT and NSF. To learn more about 3DP™, please visit the MIT or National Science Foundation web sites.