The Transformative Impact of 3D Printing on Sheet Metal Fabrication
The Transformative Impact of 3D Printing on Sheet Metal Fabrication
Date：2024-02-13 16:30
3D printing technology—also known as additive manufacturing—is changing the way we traditionally think about and navigate the world of sheet metal fabrication. When designers use this technology, it allows them not only to prototype part forms but also to prototype parts in the instances required for their designs. Sheet metal components that wire together amazing systems of behavior can now be “printed” with such speed and with such unfathomable-to-most humans resolution that one could easily mistake the end product for a truly fabbed thing from the mind of a molten-metal deconstructor.
Nevertheless, any cutting-edge technology invariably incurs growing pains, and 3D printing in the sheet metal industry is no exception. Getting parts to print with the precision necessary to allow them to perform like the traditional parts they were designed to replace, is one of several obstacles. Another is the quality of the materials themselves. Indeed, simulated testing shows that, using the same conditions, 3D-printed parts made from the metal powder, nickel, are not as strong or ductile as parts made using more conventional methods. Will that change? If so, when? And at what cost? These are some of the questions hovering over 3D printing in the sheet metal industry.
Despite the challenges, additive manufacturing has many pluses. Conventional methods for making sheet metal components typically entail cutting, bending, and fastening parts together. Those processes can consume a lot of labor and time. With additive manufacturing, the sheet metal process could work in exactly the opposite way: Instead of starting with a large amount of material and cutting away everything that isn't needed, you'd start with a small amount of material (or several small pieces of material, if your design necessitates that) and do the subtractive part of the process only if it turns out you needed to join together pieces and parts. With this method, you're much more likely to make use of the material you've got and to use it in efficient ways.
The 3D printing potential appears to be large and diverse—no, never mind: its resources are practically limitless. To this point, the evolution of the technology has driven the printing speed closer and closer to real-time replication. The next orders of magnitude will lift some structure resembling the vault of a Cistercian monastery from a plinth and into space, with not a single weak point in that structure; they'll give you reamers for your unfathomable physics lab at UC Berkeley, and they'll fold musical scores for the Juilliard School inside that same vault.
What I refer to as "informed design" lies behind this shift. If eco-friendly AI promotes smarter use of resources, then half of the equation leading toward "design for disassembly" (DfD) entails using materials that are far more capable of serving the functions envisioned by the human designer. That means a change from our almost single-minded focus on using the same materials in almost the same ways. For a long time, we've excessively relied on sheet metal as "just a form" and not "just a form, and also a plane, and also a way to get around space." But in 3D printing, sheet metal—especially in the hands of DfD aficionados—can become the inevitable shell of the sort of structure that just might redefine both the words "structure" and "the words that describe the inexpressible forms of a truly sustainable future."
Nevertheless, any cutting-edge technology invariably incurs growing pains, and 3D printing in the sheet metal industry is no exception. Getting parts to print with the precision necessary to allow them to perform like the traditional parts they were designed to replace, is one of several obstacles. Another is the quality of the materials themselves. Indeed, simulated testing shows that, using the same conditions, 3D-printed parts made from the metal powder, nickel, are not as strong or ductile as parts made using more conventional methods. Will that change? If so, when? And at what cost? These are some of the questions hovering over 3D printing in the sheet metal industry.
Despite the challenges, additive manufacturing has many pluses. Conventional methods for making sheet metal components typically entail cutting, bending, and fastening parts together. Those processes can consume a lot of labor and time. With additive manufacturing, the sheet metal process could work in exactly the opposite way: Instead of starting with a large amount of material and cutting away everything that isn't needed, you'd start with a small amount of material (or several small pieces of material, if your design necessitates that) and do the subtractive part of the process only if it turns out you needed to join together pieces and parts. With this method, you're much more likely to make use of the material you've got and to use it in efficient ways.
The 3D printing potential appears to be large and diverse—no, never mind: its resources are practically limitless. To this point, the evolution of the technology has driven the printing speed closer and closer to real-time replication. The next orders of magnitude will lift some structure resembling the vault of a Cistercian monastery from a plinth and into space, with not a single weak point in that structure; they'll give you reamers for your unfathomable physics lab at UC Berkeley, and they'll fold musical scores for the Juilliard School inside that same vault.
What I refer to as "informed design" lies behind this shift. If eco-friendly AI promotes smarter use of resources, then half of the equation leading toward "design for disassembly" (DfD) entails using materials that are far more capable of serving the functions envisioned by the human designer. That means a change from our almost single-minded focus on using the same materials in almost the same ways. For a long time, we've excessively relied on sheet metal as "just a form" and not "just a form, and also a plane, and also a way to get around space." But in 3D printing, sheet metal—especially in the hands of DfD aficionados—can become the inevitable shell of the sort of structure that just might redefine both the words "structure" and "the words that describe the inexpressible forms of a truly sustainable future."
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