How 3D Printing Will Save American Manufacturing

I guess I'm not convinced. Can someone explain the utility of 3D printing beyond rapidly building prototypes? Can it really reach scale and quality to do mass manufacturing? And what types of products could not in any way be manufactured with 3D printers? Which could?

Breathless speculation penned by yet another 3D printing evangelist with less consideration of material science than your average ant. Wake me up when you know what Young's Modulus is.

3D printing isn't feasible for the the mass manufacturing of everything yet, but it's feasible for certain types of products today, and it is improving. Here are some ways in which 3D printing has moved closer in the last few years:

* Stronger materials, such as Somos NeXt resin: http://www.dsm.com/en_US/html/dsms/next.htm

* Cheaper materials

* BioCompatible materials, such as Med610 which just came out last week: http://www.objet.com/3D-Printing-Materials/Overview/Bio-Comp...

* The ability to print in more than one material at a time, as shown in these human feet: http://www.objetblog.com/2011/09/21/a-table-of-3d-printed-fe...

* Higher resolution printing, such as the Objet Eden500V which can print detail as small as 0.0006”: http://www.objet.com/3D-Printer/Objet_Eden500V/

Examples of consumer products currently being made with the help of 3D printers include:

* Invisalign braces: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVQq9joOS_4

* Hearing aids: http://i.materialise.com/blog/entry/3d-printing-in-medicine-...

* Jewelry: http://www.summerized.com/jewelry/

Things will really take off for 3D printing when printers can simultaneously print in multiple materials like plastic, metal, and rubber, and in multiple colors per part. Until then, you're right that 3D printers will continue to be used primarily for rapid prototyping, but this will change within a few years as the technology continues to improve and the cost continues to fall.

I am not the author of the article, just the submitter. However, I'll run with your comment anyway...

Tensile Modulus (aka Young's Modulus) is a measure of how stiff a material is. Specifically, it's a measure of how much a material stretches under load. (Diamond has a very high tensile modulus while rubber has a very low tensile modulus.)

Ten years ago, people were 3D printing in plastics with a tensile modulus of under 1,000 MPa and they were happy with that. Today you can print in DSM Somos NanoTool which has a tensile modulus of 11,400 MPa. Keep in mind this is a plastic. ( Source: http://www.dsm.com/en_US/downloads/dsms/NanoTooleng_10.09.pd... )

If you need even stronger materials then you should consider using an SLS (selective laser sintering) printer that can build products in titanium, aluminum or steel. Imagine how many ants could safely walk across a bridge 3D printed in any of these!

There is some research going on the UK (I can't remember the University now) to do with printing buildings. The potential for reducing raw material and labour costs must be huge.