Do you want to live in the house built by 3D printing?

Do you want to live in the house built by 3D printing? Recently, some buildings built by 3D printing technology show in Suzhou, including 1 1000㎡ villa，1 five-story residential building and 1 simple showroom. The building is printed by large 3D printing machine with one day.

It is just a start living in this house. “Printing” will be a way of life in future. For example, if you find that the cup is not enough to entertain the guests, you can print a set of glass with your 3D printing machine through software modeling. You can print everything you want in future.

What is the magic of 3D printing technology?

Let introduce the difference between 3D printing technology and normal printer. Normal printer prints two-dimensional products designed by computer with ink and paper. The process contains two links: one is design; another is to present printing materials according to design principle.

The two processes are also suit for 3D printing technology. 3D printing technology adopts three-dimensional design, while the printer use metal, ceramics, plastics, sand as raw materials. When the printer is connected with computer, the real products will be finished by the control of computer with stack of materials. That is to say, the 3D printer can print many real product, such as house, kinds of food, cheap artificial limb if there is raw materials and correct design.

The details of two processes are as follows:

1.Three-dimension design: First, through computer aided design (CAD) or computer animation modeling software, the 3D model will be "segmented" into layers, which will guide the printer to print layer by layer.

2.Printing process: By reading the cross-section information in the file, the printer prints the sections by layer by layer, then glue each layer of cross-sections together in a variety of ways to create an entity.

There is an example to show how to print Suzhou Villa?

Obvious, the finish of this big building doesn’t only contribute to 3D printer. The printer works as the processing of the parts of the house. It is reported that the inner steel will be finished before printing, and then the 3D printer prints the components of the building. The most amazing thing is that it takes only three workers to form such a building. If this were to go back to ancient times, it would be a great shock for the emperor of all ages.

The biggest contribution of a 3D printer is to print out the wall. There is a wall of bricks outside the wall, which is a threaded wall of cement, like noodles, layered on top of each other, according to the report.. Each "noodle" is tightly bound, and the walls are solid. The "ink" materials for printing buildings are mainly construction waste, industrial waste and mine tailings.

You can imagine that the printer must be large to print such big buildings. The data show that the "printer" is 6.6 meters high, 10 meters wide and 32 meters long, with a floor area of a basketball court and a height of three stories. The printing process is a huge shower nozzle that squirts out ink. It's a little exciting to think about. Cool very much! After that, the wall can also build up like building blocks, and then use reinforced concrete to make a second "printing" perfusion. Such a 80 million Yuan villa, with 3D printing technology, costs just 1 million Yuan.

3D printing spreads to all the corners

More and more facts show that 3D printers are no longer the exclusive machines of designers and scientists, which is connected closely to everyone. It can make small cakes such as cakes and cookies, and can design fashion clothes such as canvas shoes and high heels, and build cars and houses. You can enjoy the joy of this new technology in every bit of your life.

In the field of production, 3D printing technology extends far beyond traditional manufacturing to military, medical, and even some new business models. It can be said that many industries have been changed or even overturned due to the existence of this technology.

Many industries are constantly showing vitality, and some industries are dying out. If you are a teacher, if you come to the classroom with a small shark model made with 3D printing, this class will definitely impress your students. If your student has a 3D printed design and gets the finished product to share in the classroom, he will also be impressed with a knowledge point. This is how smart education achieves.

The Internet "prophecy" Kevin kelly has also said: “3D printing is still only in the early stages of development, and many companies can only print something simple. Based on the profound traditional manufacturing background, China will become a leader in the new round of 3D printing technology.”

Why is Guo Taiming not going with 3D printing?

What's the basis for that? Mr Gou said Honghai had been using 3D printing technology 30 years ago. But the technology could not be used for commercial purposes and was not commercially viable. He uses 3D printed calls as an example to show that this can be made, but can only be seen and cannot be used. Therefore, 3D printed goods cannot be added to electronic components and cannot be produced by electronic products.

These works really points out the shortcomings of 3D printing. At present, the most difficulty that 3D printing meets that it can not make electronic components, which greatly limit the application range of 3D printing. Because the chip involves different  kinds of materials. The 3D printing device can make a single material take shape once, but the products of different materials can only print the parts separately, which makes the convenience and advantage of the products greatly reduced.

In addition, 3D printing is too expensive to meet the required intensity. For example, using 3D printing technology to make car engines can achieve the required intensity by using very expensive machines and expensive materials.

At the same time, the printing materials is very limited. Industry insiders believe that the technology is still limited to the pilot stage, and the current application area is not broad enough. The extension of the material determines the capability boundary of the 3D printer. Limited by material, the initial application of 3D printing was mainly limited to sample production. Some precision instruments or high-cost products can be quickly designed with 3D printing to save time and material costs.  The advantages for 3D printing is to make parts that are so complex that they are difficult to process.

But the efficiency is obvious lower than traditional machine if 3D printer makes components that is easy to process. In modern manufacturing, most of the parts are easy to process and can be standardized, and can be made many times per minute with machine tools, which is much faster than 3D printing. So  the impact of 3D printing technology on traditional manufacturing industry is very limited at present.

【References】

1. Something you do not know about 3D printing. People's Daily overseas edition. 2012-09-17

2. 3D printing (Introduction, principles and techniques)? designspark. 2013-10-29

3. Why Guo Taiming do not believe 3D printing?. Observer. 2013-06-25

4. 3D printing. Author: Hod . Lipson