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2 Apr 2017

The Future of Micro Drones with Mosquito Flight Patterns

The Future of Mini Drones or MAV’s (Micro Air Vehicles)

Drones have been around for some time but the on-going technological development in advanced engineering is astonishing. Can you imagine a swarm of robotic and autonomous insects?

When you think of mosquitoes, there really aren’t many good things to say. They often carry potentially lethal diseases such as malaria. Mosquitoes are annoying and their bites can be really painful, itchy and irritating.

This is not what Zoologists from the University of Oxford and the Royal Veterinary Hospital in Japan are focusing on though. In fact, they’ve discovered something very interesting.

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3 Dec 2016

Metal Additive Manufacturing

When you think of additive manufacturing, or 3D printing as it’s more commonly known, there is a tendency to immediately think of plastic products. However, increasingly metals are being used in additive manufacturing processes and in the last few years metal 3D printing has gone from strength to strength.

In powder form, a variety of metals can be used in 3D printing processes enabling a whole host of components to be made more easily. Consumer products, aerospace components and medical aids are now being routinely produced using metal additive manufacturing processes.

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5 Feb 2016

3D Printing in Space

Back at the end of 2014, the world was amazed to hear from NASA about the final test phase of a 3D printer in space. The printer, which had been used on the ground prior to its launch into space, went to the International Space Station on a resupply vessel in September of 2014. A ratchet wrench printed from a design file transmitted from the ground was completed in December. The wrench along with a number of other things printed was then sent back to earth in 2015 for rigorous testing.

In December 2015 another resupply vessel went up to the International Space Station and on board this time was the European contribution to 3D printing in space – a Portable on Board 3D printer. The printer, measuring 25cm on each side and weighing just 5,5kg prints objects made from polylactic acid (PLA). PLA is a plastic that is made from renewable resources and is also biocompatible and biodegradable. It was built by Altran Italia in partnership with Thales Alenia Space and the Italian Institute of Technology under the direction of the Italian Space Agency, ASI.

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28 Sep 2015

3D Printing | Additive Manufacture Moves From Prototype To Production

Traditionally 3D printing, or ‘Additive Manufacture’ has been used mainly to create prototypes and showcase design ideas. The speed with which Additive Manufacture (AM) can take place along with the versatility of the manufacture method causes it to be the most obvious choice when creating new designs.

An example of where AM is still being used for it’s traditional versatility is the surgeons of Great Ormond Street Hospital using a 3D printer to create a model of a patients’ Trachea. The surgeons had to perform a delicate surgery on a child. They used a CT scanner to map the boys’ Trachea, 3D printed an exact model of it and then assessed which surgical instruments fit the tiny spaces best.

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28 Aug 2014

3D printing to help aerospace industry

Most engineers will tell you that 3D printing represents another significant development within the manufacturing industry.

How does 3D printing work?

Rather than making something by sticking lots of small parts together, a 3D printer can build complicated items in one piece. The printers use a variety of very different types of additive manufacturing technologies but they all share one core thing in common. They create a three dimensional object by building it layer by layer.

3D printing technology could now offer a new way for engineers to think about how to join and fasten components and the technology is moving away from its prototyping roots. Aerospace engineers are now hoping to prove its potential, one component at a time. Some experts claim 3D printing could even create new capabilities in the fasteners and joints that hold together an aircraft.

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6 Mar 2014

3D printing is the future

If you talk to most engineering experts, they will tell you that 3D printing represents one of the most significant developments ever seen in the manufacturing industry.

For those who are still unsure about 3D printing or as it’s more professionally called, additive manufacturing, the following quote, perhaps, provides the best possible explanation.

“3D printing moves us away from the Henry Ford era mass production line and will bring us to a new reality of customizable, one-off production.”

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31 Dec 2013

3-D printing used on board Tornado jet

For the past decade, aerospace manufacturers have used additive printing to prototype select parts.  For example, the global aerospace industry received a jolt earlier this year when AVIC Heavy Machinery Co. Ltd. of China displayed a 5-meter-long (16.4-foot-long) titanium part fabricated with additive manufacturing, also known as 3-D printing.The process is fast and affordable.

Now, printed aircraft parts have flown for the first time in the UK on board a Tornado jet. Engineers at BAE Systems, who are responsible for the mix of plastic, protective covers and metal support struts, said the components demonstrated how 3-D printing could reduce costs and increase strength compared to conventionally made parts. The latest development is also set to pave the way for their wider use in aerospace.

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25 Oct 2013

3D Printers – What’s the Latest?

Last year we wrote a post about the introduction of 3D printers to industry.

We made some assumptions about how education, engineering and architecture industries would be likely to use this latest technology. Well 18 months down the line, let’s take a look at the developments of 3D printers and see how they are being used.

The commercial cost of 3D printers has reduced and their use seems to have been incorporated into just about every industry possible.

Hollywood and the film industry has embraced 3D printing wholeheartedly, with costumes, models and monsters all now being made using 3D printing techniques. This 3ders.org article tells in more detail how the production of concept models etc. is much quicker and easier using the latest technology.

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21 Jan 2013

3D Modelling and Computerised Simulation Software Plunge to the Deepest Depths

3D Modelling and Computerised Simulation Software Plunge to the Deepest Depths

3D modelling and computerised simulation are still relatively new concepts in the engineering world. Their arrival has enabled the modelling and prototyping of components that have amazingly complex profiles. But in the greater scheme of things, they have also played a fundamental part in enabling man to land at the deepest place on Earth – the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the ravine that scores the sea bed of the western Pacific Ocean, stretching for some 1,500 miles off the coasts of Japan and China.

First Man at the Earth’s Nadir
Movie blockbuster director James Cameron made the historic dive last year, the first man ever to have made the dive to the deepest reaches on the planet. He seems to have an obsession with our oceans. In 1989 he directed “The Abyss”, the movie that revealed an alien civilisation living in the Cayman Trough, the deepest point of the Caribbean Ocean. Then in 1997 he directed movie blockbuster “Titanic”. The move in which Kate Winslet and Leonardo Dicaprio starred, dramatising the sinking of the White Line liner on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic from Southampton to New York in 1912. In 2005 Cameron part directed “Aliens of the Deep”, a documentary which explored the life-forms that dwelt around hydrothermal vents in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

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