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Kelsey Faye https://ift.tt/3slmTzu A recent graduate of Austin Peay State University, Kelsey Faye is a practising graphic designer, printmaker, and photographer. Currently, Kelsey is working on a new functional wood block typeface that takes inspiration from street art. They are hoping to use the font for a series of zines which will also feature screen printed elements, balsa wood covers, and a photo series on CMYK screen printing of film photos. Ultimately, Kelsey aims to build up their own library that will focus on zines and their printing, particularly those that incorporate wood blocks and wood type. “I want to make the power of print personal and cultivate community around it” says the printmaker. Having only graduated last year, and working two part-time jobs to support their printmaking venture, Kelsey is still working on building their own home studio, influenced by the experimentations they partook in at their university’s studio. They currently have 2 screens, squeegee, tapes, a Mac with the full Adobe suite (mainly using Photoshop Illustrator and InDesign), a variety of wood types, and wood burning and carving materials. We’re excited to see what’s in store for this young printmaker and type-enthusiast! Printing via People of Print https://ift.tt/2DhgcW7 February 24, 2021 at 07:40AM
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Silver, Copper, & Tungsten Combined to Make Antiviral “COVID-Killing” 3D Printing Material https://ift.tt/3srD3XZ As much as we all hoped it would be gone by now, COVID-19 is still spreading around the world, and so the pandemic continues. But, an interdisciplinary team of scientists and bioengineers worked together to develop a 3D printable antiviral material that they claim can actually kill the novel coronavirus, and potentially help lower the disease spread. PhD researcher John Robinson, Dr. Arun Arjunan, and Dr. Ahmad Baroutaji with the Additive Manufacturing Functional Materials (AMFM) research group at the University of Wolverhampton in the UK led the charge, and teamed up with the Ángel Serrano-Aroca group from the Catholic University of Valencia’s Biomaterials and Bioengineering Lab for rapid material development and anti-COVID viral analysis. The goal is to use the antiviral material in filtration systems and face masks in order to lower the risk of infection. Wolverhampton’s AMFM researchers are experts when it comes to 3D printing microbial biomaterials, and wanted to look into the possibility of using 3D printed antiviral materials to lower both airborne and surface-based virus transmission, especially with new COVID-19 variants emerging, one or more of which could end up being a vaccine evasive strain.
The team used tungsten, silver, and copper to make their antiviral material. Silver has been found to have antimicrobial properties, which is great, but unfortunately the material is pretty pricey, so it’s not a cost-effective option on its own in terms of large-scale implementation, and especially not for single-use products. Copper is much less expensive than silver and has been shown to have anti-COVID-19 properties, and new research also shows that tungsten can help kill viruses. While this research is limited, it does show that tungsten has antimicrobial effects against some common pathogens. like E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus, which is why the researchers decided to combine all three in order to 3D print their COVID-killing material. They used selective laser melting (SLM) technology to make their novel material, which is apparently displaying excellent results.
Interestingly, this isn’t the first reusable filter with antimicrobial properties that has been 3D printed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In April 2020, ExOne announced that it had worked with the University of Pittsburgh to 3D print copper filters using its binder jetting process. In the case of ExOne, the benefit of being able to tune the porosity of the print process, something that is easier to achieve with binder jetting, actually aided in the production of filters. (Sources: Express & Star, The Engineer) Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com February 24, 2021 at 07:32AM
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WACKER’s ACEO Launches Hard/Soft Multi-Material 3D Printing Service https://ift.tt/3qV7oOs Applying WACKER’s expertise in silicone to the world of 3D printing, ACEO was launched in 2017 with one of the few 3D printing services specialized in producing elastomeric parts. Now, the subsidiary of the chemical giant has expanded its technology to combine both soft silicone and hard materials in a single print. With ACEO’s industrial 3D printers, it’s possible to 3D print up to four materials, including support. The company offers a variety of silicones with a range of properties, including differences in shore hardness, UV resistance, thermal stability, and sterilizability. In 2018, electrically conductive silicone was added to its multi-material 3D printing portfolio to enable flexible sensors and other applications. By partnering with DELO Industrial Adhesives, ACEO is now offering an epoxy thermoset material that makes it possible to combine soft silicone and hard epoxy materials. The materials do not adhere together, meaning that it is necessary to mechanically fix the two substances together for part integrity. However, it also means that the materials can be easily separated after use. DELO was in 3D printing news recently through a partnership with Infotech, which has launched its own line of 3D printers using DELO materials. ACEO suggests that “silicone applications can be made stronger by adding epoxy reinforcements or protective sections, and designers can add functionality by adding tough connector parts.” For epoxy-focused developers, “engineers can now make hard products safer by designing soft interfaces, they can provide flexibility by adding hinges or dampening by adding spring elements and so on.” ACEO highlights the fact that, by combining multiple materials into a single print, production can be simplified, as complex assembly operations can be avoided. As discussed elsewhere, silicone 3D printing severely underrepresented in the industry, with ACEO representing the largest provider of silicone 3D printing. Instead, those interested in 3D printing flexible parts typically must rely on inkjetting, powder bed fusion, vat photopolymerization or material extrusion of an elastomeric, but non-silicone material. This may be acceptable for form and fit prototyping, but materials such as thermoplastic polyurethane do not offer the same chemical resistance, temperature stability, and resistance to ultraviolet light as silicones. In turn, they may not be suitable for the same applications, such as the production of sterilizable medical parts. ACEO continues to expand its offerings through its 3D printing service, but one wonders when the next big leap in silicones will occur. Perhaps Spectroplast will become the leading competition to ACEO, but it doesn’t have the same heavy backing as ACEO does with WACKER. There may not be enough interest in 3D printing silicones at the moment to really expand the market, but maybe it will take the sale of industrial silicone 3D printers to really drive this small segment forward. Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com February 24, 2021 at 07:02AM
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3D Printing News Briefs, February 24, 2021: Auburn University, Vector Photonics, Siemens Energy, Omegasonics, Bugatti, Hackaday https://ift.tt/2ZMgsJK We’re starting with some business in 3D Printing News Briefs today, talking about Auburn University’s Additive Manufacturing Accelerator and Vector Photonics leading the BLOODLINE consortium, which I promise isn’t as weird as its name would suggest. Moving on, Siemens Energy has come up with a way to use 3D printing to upgrade turbine blades rather than repairing them, and Omegasonics has introduced its updated ultrasonic cleaning equipment for 3D printed parts. Finally, the Bugatti Bolide hypercar features a multitude of 3D printed components, and a Hackaday post details how to make a DIY HEPA filter fan with some 3D printed pieces. Auburn University’s AM Accelerator Targets 3D Printing Startups Officials from the city of Auburn, Alabama are offering local entrepreneurs and faculty from Auburn University the chance to help grow a new industry by joining the Additive Manufacturing Accelerator, a partnership program between the National Center for Additive Manufacturing Excellence, the university, and the city’s Training Connection that runs through the fall of 2021. The Accelerator targets startups that use 3D printing, and offers funding and advice to help with things like establishing manufacturing processes, hiring employees, and finding customers. The goal is to help ten local companies and three startups, and provide a new local industry and student training opportunities. One of the Accelerator’s first clients is Auburn University Professor Michael Zabala, who teaches mechanical engineering with an emphasis on human biology. At the request of one of the university’s football trainers, he created bespoke padding for a player in 2019, and XO Armor was born. Athletes use the startup’s app to scan ankle, elbow, knee, and shoulder joints, then send the specifications to XO, which then creates and delivers a pad or brace to help disperse the energy from a field collision and protect the joint.
The AM Accelerator will help Zabala create local jobs, training opportunities for engineering students, and scale XO Armor. Vector Photonics Leading BLOODLINE Consortium According to SmarTech Analysis, the market for metal laser 3D printing will skyrocket to $10 billion by the year 2025. As such, Vector Photonics is leading an Innovate UK-funded international consortium project to develop metal 3D printing chips based on its own PCSELs (Photonic Crystal Surface Emitting Lasers). Other partners in the £1.5 million Project BLOODLINE, which stands for “Bright Laser diOdes fOr aDvance metaL addItive maNufacturing systEms,” are the UK’s Compound Semiconductor Applications (CSA) Catapult, a Japanese manufacturer of semiconductors, and a Japanese industrial equipment manufacturer. The PCSEL chips should be suitable for any 3D printer manufacturer to use.
Siemens Uses Hybrid 3D Printing to Add Features to Turbine Blades One SGT5-4000F gas turbine blade converts as much power into rotational energy as there is in ten Porsche 911 sports cars. Because of the high gas velocities and temperatures that occur when you operate a gas turbine, you often see burn-off at the blade tip, which can lead to gaps between the tip and the ring segment and decrease turbine performance. AM and repair experts at Siemens Energy figured out how to use a hybrid 3D printing process to upgrade broken turbine blades, rather than repairing them, by adding high-resolution cooling structures in important areas in order to prevent the blade tip from failing. The technology used here was laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) metal 3D printing, and this new design can help cool critical blade areas more effectively, which can prevent material loss resulting from burn-off. Applying AM to existing components, called Hybrid L-PBF Repair or HybridTech, is still a newer area that’s being explored, and is being developed as part of a European Regional Development Fund research project. Turbine blades that been operating at high temperature have different, individual shapes, which makes it difficult to complete L-PBF repair. So by pairing 3D scanning and a new algorithm, Siemens Energy developed a new CAD-CAM digital repair chain, which adapts the shape of 3D printed tip automatically so it’s a perfect match to the blade. The first sets of blades have already been completed, and the team is working to convert the standard repair procedures to add the new process, so it can be applied to other components in the future. Omegasonics Updates Ultrasonic 3D Print Cleaning Technology California-based Omegasonics has released its updated ultrasonic cavitation equipment for cleaning 3D printed parts, which can help lead to faster, more precise 3D printing. Once certain technical parts have been removed from the print bed, they normally need precise cleaning and preparation, and the manual, labor-intensive process of using heated circulation washers to do could take up to 24 hours, depending on part size. But with Omegasonics’ updated ultrasonic technology, cleaning time can be majorly reduced. The process removes support structures from materials such as Nylon 12, Polycarbonate, PCABS, and ABS, and keeps the part quality high while bringing labor costs down.
This new technology is part of the company’s broader 2021 plan to support its clients, and it also plans to launch several new products, including a thermal dyeing station for 3D printed thermoplastic products and one for removing soluble supports. Bugatti Bolide’s Lightweight 3D Printed Components The Bugatti Bolide hypercar weighs in at just 1,240 kg, with a powerful 8 liter, quad-turbocharged W16 engine, and has a nearly unheard of power-to-weight ratio of 0.67 kg per horsepower, mainly thanks to the many lightweight metal 3D printed components it sports. The automaker has long used the technology to make components for its race cars, and the Bolide, while only a working concept at the moment, is no different. Its new titanium 3D printed pushrods are hollow, and even though they only weigh 100 grams, they can handle up to 3.5 tons of force, while the wheel-mounted radial compressors, which reduce lift and cool brakes at high speeds, are made with a 0.48 mm thick 3D printed titanium central bowl. The hollow front wing mounted bracket was also 3D printed using titanium, and the huge rear wing is held in place with a strong titanium 3D printed component. Last but not least, the Bolide steering column also features 3D printed hollow parts. All of these parts help the Bugatti Bolide go from zero to 60 mph in less than three seconds.
3D Printed Parts for DIY HEPA Fan If you’re back in the office instead of working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, it can be uncomfortable spending so much time around other people in close quarters with only hand sanitizer and a face mask to protect you against germs. Hackaday published an interesting DIY project for a HEPA filtering fan by Thingiverse user jshanna, which looks pretty simple to build and features some black PLA 3D printed pieces, along with a few more commonly available parts such as nuts, washers, screws, thread brass inserts, and furniture pads. It looks like a quick, easy way to clear that stale air in your office.
Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com February 24, 2021 at 06:57AM U.S. Postal Service Awards Contract to Launch Multi-Billion-Dollar Modernization of Postal Delivery Vehicle Fleet https://ift.tt/3bxIa3X Feb. 23, 2021 U.S. Postal Service Awards Contract to Launch Multi-Billion-Dollar Modernization of Postal Delivery Vehicle Fleet
WASHINGTON, DC — The U.S. Postal Service announced today it awarded a 10-year contract to Oshkosh, WI, based Oshkosh Defense, to manufacture a new generation of U.S.-built postal delivery vehicles that will drive the most dramatic modernization of the USPS fleet in three decades. The historic investment is part of a soon-to-be-released plan the Postal Service has developed to transform its financial performance and customer service over the next 10 years through significant investments in people, technology and infrastructure as it seeks to become the preferred delivery service provider for the American public. Under the contract’s initial $482 million investment, Oshkosh Defense will finalize the production design of the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle (NGDV) — a purpose-built, right-hand-drive vehicle for mail and package delivery — and will assemble 50,000 to 165,000 of them over 10 years. The vehicles will be equipped with either fuel-efficient internal combustion engines or battery electric powertrains and can be retrofitted to keep pace with advances in electric vehicle technologies. The initial investment includes plant tooling and build-out for the U.S. manufacturing facility where final vehicle assembly will occur. The contract is the first part of a multi-billion-dollar 10-year effort to replace the Postal Service’s delivery vehicle fleet, one of the world’s largest. The Postal Service fleet has more than 230,000 vehicles in every class, including both purpose-built and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) vehicles. Approximately 190,000 deliver mail six, and often seven, days a week in every U.S. community. The NGDV, along with other COTS vehicles, will replace and expand the current delivery fleet, which includes many vehicles that have been in service for 30 years. The first NGDVs are estimated to appear on carrier routes in 2023. “As the American institution that binds our country together, the U.S. Postal Service can have a bright and modern future if we make investments today that position us for excellence tomorrow,” said Postmaster General and USPS Chief Executive Officer Louis DeJoy. “The NGDV program expands our capacity for handling more package volume and supports our carriers with cleaner and more efficient technologies, more amenities, and greater comfort and security as they deliver every day on behalf of the American people.” The NGDV vehicles will include air conditioning and heating, improved ergonomics, and some of the most advanced vehicle technology — including 360-degree cameras, advanced braking and traction control, air bags, a front- and rear-collision avoidance system that includes visual, audio warning, and automatic braking. The vehicles will also have increased cargo capacity to maximize efficiency and better accommodate higher package volumes stemming from the growth of eCommerce. “Our fleet modernization also reflects the Postal Service’s commitment to a more environmentally sustainable mix of vehicles,” DeJoy said. “Because we operate one of the largest civilian government fleets in the world, we are committed to pursuing near-term and long-term opportunities to reduce our impact on the environment.” The Postal Service awarded the Oshkosh Defense contract in accordance with competitive Postal Service procurement policies after extensive testing of prototype vehicles, evaluation of offered production proposals, and discussions of technical specifications with the offerors. The award is an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract, meaning that after an initial dollar commitment, the Postal Service will have the ongoing ability to order more NGDV over a fixed period of time, in this case,10 years. Oshkosh Defense is evaluating which of their several U.S. manufacturing locations is best suited to potentially increase the production rate of the NGDV. Video remarks featuring Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and other Postal Service executives, and an image of the new NGDV are available on the USPS Newsroom. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. ### Printing via USPS News https://ift.tt/2hH9aDC February 23, 2021 at 02:03PM Autodesk Aims to Democratize Simulation for 3D Printing with Fusion 360 Extension https://ift.tt/3dFeDWU As discussed at Additive Manufacturing Strategies, more advanced software is going to be key to driving the adoption of 3D printing in part by digitizing tribal knowledge, as Todd Grimm put it, so that our design software automatically performs tasks that formerly required hands-on experience with various production technologies to execute manually. One important piece of that knowledge is understanding how to prevent build failure in metal 3D printing. In fact, even the tribal knowledge associated with avoiding build failure is far from perfect, with trial-and-error being the go-to strategy for successfully producing a metal part. This is where simulation is destined to play a crucial role. Every variable in the build chamber of a metal powder bed fusion (PBF) system will impact whether a part will come out of the printer as it was designed: the orientation of the component, placement of support structures, scan strategy, laser spot size and more. If that can be accurately simulated and potential issues such as thermal stress and distortion can be accounted for, we can avoid trial and error and produce parts first the right time. For this reason, ANSYS, Hexagon, VELO3D and more are developing simulation software for metal 3D printing. Autodesk, too, has addressed simulation via Netfabb Local Simulation, acquired by the CAD giant in 2016. Now, the company has begun the process of porting some of Netfabb’s advanced simulation tools into Fusion 360, the company’s popular CAD platform. Sualp Ozel, Senior Product Manager for 3D printing at Autodesk, joined the firm when ALGOR Inc. was purchased in 2009, bringing with it a host of finite element analysis (FEA) tools. When Netfabb was brought on board in 2016, Ozel switched to the 3D printing team to see how he could apply his expertise in simulation to 3D printing. As his team improved the simulation capabilities of Netfabb Local Simulation over time, Autodesk set about turning Fusion 360 into a cohesive modeling platform that not only takes care of the design portion of production, but also the actual manufacturing tasks. Now, through various extensions, Fusion 360 can generate toolpaths for CAM and 3D printing, making it possible to go from design to production within a single interface. At the beginning of this year, that integration grew to include simulation. At the moment, the Additive Simulation Extension for Fusion 360 can simulate laser PBF. Accessing the extension is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons within the software. When you have a design that you want to print, you select how you want to manufacture the part from the Fusion 360 menu, choose additive manufacturing, the metal you’d like to use, orient the part and add support structures. From that point, you can either slice the file and generate a toolpath for your laser and print it or you can simulate the print procedure to see if it will be successful. The software runs on the same solvers and engines as Netfabb Local Simulation, which is a multi-scale thermal-mechanical modeling approach to FEA of the print area. Whereas analyzing the entire laser path across the entire build would take millennia, the software simulated a 1 mm x 1 mm area and scales that up across the print process to estimate how the object will distort and how stress are going to build up. If it’s going to fail, due to distortion, recoater blade interference or problematic support structures, you can address those issues. That is to say that those are the three problems that Fusion 360 can currently detect with the Additive Simulation Extension. At the moment, the software can then compensate for the distortions that may occur in the part. In the future, however, more features from Netfabb will become available within Fusion 360, such as support and orientation optimization. As a professor in mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon, Ozel pointed out that, not only is simulation increasingly important to outcome success in metal 3D printing, but it’s even aiding in the education of metal 3D printing to engineering students.
Now that SLM have been taken care of, the next process that Ozel’s team plans to tackle is directed energy deposition. Simulation is free as a tech preview to commercial and educational users at the moment, though hobbyists can only access FDM, given the likelihood that they do not have their own PBF machines. Also at the moment, simulation does not run in the cloud and requires the same computing power of FEA generally, which means that you might need a solid amount of RAM if you want to run these simulations quickly. However, the plan is to be able to run this in the cloud when the tool is ready to move beyond tech preview and into commercial release, hopefully this year. According to Ozel, the most important aspect of the tool is accessibility, which is why cloud-driven simulation will be key.
From the perspective of someone who is inexperienced with CAD, Fusion 360 always strikes me as the most user friendly of the bunch. Now that simulation is being brought into that friendly environment, it seems as though, not only will metal 3D printing become a more repeatable process, but one that will be accessible to much wider range of users, as well. Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com February 23, 2021 at 08:31AM The LaserFactory Can Fabricate Fully Functional Drones in One Go https://ift.tt/2P4xfpb Talented researchers with MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have long worked with robotics, and a CSAIL team recently announced their development of a new system, called LaserFactory, that is able to automatically fabricate functional, custom devices, like robots, without human intervention in the process. In fact, the researchers say that the complex devices they print on the system, such as drones, can come off the print bed and immediately get to work, which would be extremely helpful in applications such as search-and-rescue or delivery. The system works by using a three-ingredient recipe which allows for the creation of structural geometry, and lets users print traces and assemble electronic components, such as actuators and sensors. A software toolkit that lets users design custom devices, plus a hardware platform that prints them, are the two parts of LaserFactory that work synchronously to build these functional drones in one step.
The team’s research is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and received further support from a Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship and The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. So, here’s how the LaserFactory can create a fully functioning drone: first, a user would design the device by selecting and placing components from a parts library, and then draw on the circuit traces, which allow electricity on a PCB to flow between the electronic components. A 2D editor is used to complete the drone’s geometry, such as adding batteries and propellers, wiring them to form electrical connections, and drawing a perimeter that will set its shape. Then, the user has the chance to see their design before it’s translated by the software into a custom blueprint for machine instructions. In order to make the device in one fell swoop, the commands are embedded into one fabrication file, and an add-on is clipped onto the laser cutter that can print circuit traces and assemble components. LaserFactory then automatically cuts the geometry, dispenses silver for circuit traces, picks and place components, and makes the traces conductive by curing the silver. The final fabrication step is securing the components into place on the device. The whole process is shown in the short video above, and you can actually see the fully functional drone lift itself off the hardware and fly into the air; it’s pretty cool. As far as next steps go, the CSAIL research team is hoping to enhance the resolution and quality of the circuit traces, so they can print denser, more complex electronics. In addition, they’re hoping to use the LaserFactory as a jumping-off point to figure out how to create a wider range of 3D geometries, which would require integrating traditional 3D printing techniques.
Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com February 23, 2021 at 08:01AM Inkbit Launches Inkbit Vista Closed-Loop, Automated 3D Printer https://ift.tt/3bLZlxh If like this author you have been awaiting the launch of the first commercial 3D printer from Inkbit, then today is your day. The Massachusetts-based startup has officially announced its closed-loop 3D printer, featuring 3D machine vision, the Inkbit Vista. The first glimpses of what would become the Vista were released in 2015, when a team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) published research related to a multimaterial 3D printer capable of using machine vision to produce nearly complete functional components, such as 3D printed items with integrated lenses, LEDs and razorblades. It’s been nearly six years in the making and the technology is now commercially available. The Inkbit Vista relies on an inkjet 3D printing technology, depositing photopolymer resins from piezoelectric inkjet heads. In this way, it could be compared to PolyJet from Stratasys or MultiJet from 3D Systems. However, Inkbit’s Vision-Controlled Jetting (VCJ) is also completely different in that it relies on machine vision to introduce real-time, in-process, voxel-level closed-loop control to ensure reliability and repeatability. Moreover, the company notes, “This technology converges advanced computational techniques with a scalable hardware architecture and materials chemistries inaccessible to incumbents.” Based on pre-announcement data listed on the startup’s website, the Inkbit Vista has a build volume of 500 x 250 x 200 mm and build rate of 2.75 L/hr, producing 22 vertical mm/h and using three materials plus supports. The XY resolution is 50 microns, while the Z-axis resolution is 10-25 microns. However, the company says that its technology is scalable, so we’ll have to see what that means exactly. Inkbit suggests that VCJ will make it possible to “bridge the gap between prototyping and full-scale production.” The firm’s proprietary vision system captures voxel-by-voxel scan data while the printer operates at “high-speed”, ensuring that each layer is printed correctly. The company also says that VCJ “enables simple, fast, and non-hazardous post-processing of parts” and can be integrated into existing manufacturing systems. Moreover, VCJ doesn’t rely on the same acrylate and methacrylate photopolymers as past machines, thus opening up the possibility for parts that aren’t as brittle and weak as those made by other inkjet technologies.
As the inventor of inkjet 3D printing via its merger with Objet, Stratasys must understand the value of Inkbit’s technology. It participated in a $12 million investment round for Inkbit with DSM. This followed a $2.8 million investment that brings the startup’s total to roughly $15 million. Inkbit has also received funds from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation and MassVentures. Inkbit previously partnered with Johnson & Johnson, though the details of that collaboration remain vague. Exact applications for VCJ have not been revealed, but one Inkbit investor, the Ocado Group, is implementing the technology. The company’s CEO and Executive Director, Tim Steiner CEO & Executive Director, said “… we’re working very closely with Inkbit on some of our own future developments where they’re enabling some really fantastic transformational advances.” What that could mean is hard to say. Ocado is company with diverse operations that include everything from technology for automated warehouses and robots to machine learning for fraud detection. The company’s warehouses feature a massive 3D grid in which groceries are stored in crates and robots swarm around moving crates to pickers that pack the groceries for orders. It could be that Ocado is interested in mass customization of goods beyond groceries, with robot swarms helping to a run an immense digital factory. Like Materialise, but with robots. Your guess is as good as mine. Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com February 23, 2021 at 07:32AM Single-Piece 3D Printed Rocket Engine Passes Fire Test in India https://ift.tt/2NT4ACY Indian space startup AgniKul Cosmos has developed and test-fired a fully 3D printed rocket engine. Produced as a single component in one run, the higher stage semi-cryogenic liquid propulsion engine called Agnilet was built to support its orbital-class launch vehicle Agnibaan. Even though several space agencies and companies are using additive manufacturing (AM) to churn out rocket parts and engines – most notably SpaceX, Relativity Space, and NASA –, AngiKul claims Agnilet is the first single-piece 3D printed rocket engine to pass a fire test successfully. Igniters, injectors, cooling channels, mounts, manifolds for fuel and oxygen, and nozzle are just a few of the hundreds of components that go into making a rocket engine. Moreover, most of these are incredibly complex geometries that traditionally require several conventional fabrication techniques and machining processes, such as welding, brazing, and drilling, to create a flight-worthy engine. However, AM is helping reduce the lead time and costs that go into making a rocket engine. For the team of engineers at AgniKul, 3D printing technology brings down the time taken to make the rocket engine to less than 72 hours. More importantly, the single part that comes out of the machine is ready to be fitted in a space vehicle after standard post-processing. The company claims that once they are prepared to launch their Agnibaan two-stage vehicle, it will be capable of taking up to 100 kg to orbits around 700 km high. The rocket is expected to carry micro- and nano-satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO) on-demand starting in 2022. One of the unique features of Agnibaan is its configurability. The number of engines that go on the first stage depends on the mission, the payload, and the launch port, which means 3D printing entire engines will be efficient. Especially if AgniKul is hoping to offer customers a two-week timeline from payload integration to rocket launch. This short wait period will help ramp up the small satellite launch industry, which is currently forced to piggyback on larger missions as even small rocket launches remain too expensive.
Fully designed and realized in India, the Agnilet engine being tested at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras was the sea-level version and is regeneratively cooled as it would be in flight. Seven of these engines are expected to power Agnibaan’s first stage, each delivering 25 kiloNewtons (kN) of thrust at sea-level. They are electrically pumped, allowing for simplified engine design and highly configurable engine clustering architectures. Based out of the Eastern Indian city of Chennai, on the Bay of Bengal, AngiKul is developing India’s first private small satellite launch vehicle and is conducting tests with the help of the country’s national space agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Founded in 2017, the IIT Madras incubated startup received a much-needed boost with the announcement of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), an autonomous body under the Department of Space, which has helped private players gain access to ISRO infrastructure. India’s space economy is valued at $7 billion, which is around 2% of the global space economy, currently pegged at $360 billion, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) estimates. But the country is aiming higher through the development of a self-sufficient ecosystem with many more new small manufacturers. Recent space reforms announced in 2020 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government have allowed private players and startups to enter India’s space sector and eventually unlock its potential. As reported by the India Global Business media outlet, the reforms envisage private and even foreign companies in the space sector to use ISRO’s infrastructure and facilities, scientific and technical resources, and even data for their space programs. Other players in the small satellite vehicle ecosystem include the Bangalore-based startup Bellatrix Aerospace, which builds a launch vehicle designed to deliver a 50 kg payload. Along with Skyroot Aerospace, a startup that recently revealed its fully 3D printed cryogenic rocket engine named Dhawan-I. The private sector has ramped up investment in space and is powering a new era of space commercialization, and India’s hyperactive startup ecosystem – the third-largest in the world – is not planning on lagging. With AM continuing to disrupt the space industry, startups can get a head start and manufacture parts with shorter lead times and more competitive costs than ever before. A perfect example of using 3D printing technology to its fullest, AgniKul’s Agnilet is literally just one piece of hardware from start to finish and has zero assembled parts. Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com February 23, 2021 at 07:16AM
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Alva Skog https://ift.tt/3qI5zEq It feels as though Swedish illustrator Alva Skog has been a name ever since graduating in 2018. Their work is both distinctive—strangely proportioned limbs, often huge hands, simple but expressive black line facial features—and beautifully mutable. As such, Skog’s work is a dream for projects like editorial illustration (their client list includes The Guardian, The New York Times and Type Notes). The vibrant, lively forms imbue Skog’s work with a subtle sense of celebrating what it is to live in a person’s body, and the works are underpinned by redressing and questioning ideas around gender identity and equality. These notions are resolutely the foundations to Sokg’s illustrations, but the subtlety with which they’re delineated means that the work is also a dream for brands. Having worked with big names like Apple in the past, Skog has recently completed a series of custom spot illustrations and default Pro wallpapers for file sharing platform WeTransfer. The images were inspired by cartoons and comics, taking a playful approach to “breaking the frame.” Each image highlights key moments throughout WeTransfer’s interface, “creating micro-narratives to surprise and delight users and provide a visual aid in using the product,” according to the brand. These were animated by Kitchen, a part of illustration agency Jelly London (which also represents Skog.)We had a chat with them about their work, process and the shitty year we all know, not-so-fondly as 2020. Tell me more about your WeTransfer work and the inspiration behind it. It was a fun challenge to reimagine and create new designs for captions like ‘success’, ‘password protection’ and ‘oops something went wrong’. The spot illustrations are small in size but I wanted to make sure they had a big impact. I wanted the characters in the spots to have a direction, movement and purpose or be a playful spin on the captions, ‘link expired’ or ‘password protection’. For the wallpaper designs I played with scale and perspective and wanted to reflect feelings I’ve had (and many other people too I imagine) during lockdown. For example, the constant cycle of watching tv and scrolling social media for hours or dreaming about lying in a meadow and watching the clouds pass by. While working on the roughs I was also in conversation with Jelly London’s animation team KITCHEN on how the spots and wallpapers could be animated. When I had finished the final designs I drew the keyframes that Jelly’s KITCHEN then put together and started animating. KITCHEN sent me animation roughs that I then gave feedback on. How’s the last year been for you working as an illustrator, with lockdown and everything else? The last year has been a rollercoaster in my personal life. I moved back to Sweden, for the time being, to be closer to my family during the pandemic. In the beginning of lockdown my mental health was in a bad state so the fact that I didn’t get as much work during the first couple of months was probably a good thing because it allowed me to focus on myself. During this time I started working on personal projects which, I realised, helped me a lot mentally and in turn is expanding my professional work and evolving my style. What have been the biggest challenges, or things that have surprised you about working as an illustrator since you graduated? I’ve learned a lot since graduating, for example what kind of projects I actually enjoy and what kind of projects pays the bills. Also, how people play a role in collaborations—and it pays off to be a nice person. I really enjoy working with my agency Jelly, they are super lovely people and I feel very supported by them. What do you wish you’d been taught at uni that you weren’t? Nothing really! I feel that uni gave me most of the tools I needed for going out into the industry. It’s just a matter of utilising them, I believe. What sort of projects do you enjoy most and why? I enjoy editorial projects the most because it’s fun to collaborate with talented art directors that give you a lot of freedom as well as making work for interesting journalism. Also, when you pick up the paper the next day to find your work is an amazing feeling that I never get tired of. How would you describe your style, and what tools do you use? I feel that my style is constantly evolving but the core of it is a queer and feminist take and that affects how I represent gender and identity positions in general. As a non-binary transperson this is something of great importance to me. My style is defined by bold colors, sculptural bodies and skewed or exaggerated perspectives. I work on an iPad in Procreate and Photoshop. You studied graphic design—how has that informed your practice as an illustrator? Do you still do design work at all? I find that the conceptual approach used in graphic design can be quite similar when working in illustration. I apply the same thinking when creating an illustration as I did when I studied graphic design. The idea informs the visuals in a way. Printing via People of Print https://ift.tt/2DhgcW7 February 23, 2021 at 04:29AM |
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