3D Printer
Medical 3D printing has spawned a prototype industry chain in medical models, diagnostic and treatment instruments, rehabilitation aids, prosthetic limbs, teeth and artificial joints. There are heavy problems regarding the approval of 3D printing products, national policy decisions on such products, and the technology and materials encountered during the rise of the products. How to break through these bottlenecks and master the entire market direction and core technology has become the key to the long-term foothold of enterprises, and is also a common concern of clinicians and researchers.
The TCT Asia Perspectives team communicated with Professor Wang Jinwu of the Ninth People's Hospital of Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine on this series of issues through an online interview during the epidemic. The interview was conducted by
The digital medicine team of Academician Dr. Kerong Dai and Professor Jinwu Wang has long been dedicated to medical 3D printing research, which mainly includes 3D printing preoperative models, surgical guides, orthopedic implants and biological 3D printing around the clinical needs of bone and joint. In response to the current development trend of the bone and joint field toward minimally invasive, personalized and precise, Prof. Wang's team is also committed to the standard development, registration and regulation of 3D printed medical devices to bring them into the ranks of approval levels and meet clinical needs. The development of metal 3D printing standards, biological 3D printing standards and 3D printing standards for rehabilitation aids have been completed and released as group standards.
"Based on the development of the standards, the team has also obtained the first 3D printing medical device registration certificate in China, and the first medical device registration certificate obtained by a wholly owned subsidiary of a university under the registrar system." Prof. Wang Jinwu introduced, "With the support of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, we established a medical device trial base and set up Shanghai Jiao Tong University Medical Device Registration and Innovation Service Center, which mainly undertakes the work of medical device testing, registration service and regulatory scientific research."
Compared with mass-produced artificial joints as well as traditional medical devices, 3D printed medical devices have relatively high costs in clinical applications and little room for corporate profitability when producing personalized bone and joint products. For this reason, with the support of the key special project of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University has established a medical device intelligent manufacturing cloud platform. Professor Wang illustrated to us the significance of establishing the platform through a simple example: a company may not necessarily make money by printing a tooth for 10,000 RMB, but the situation will be different if 200 personalized teeth are printed at once through 3D printing.
At the beginning of the medical device cloud platform, the personalized patient's disease database and the medical device template database of medical-industrial crossover are established. +The model of "Internet of Things + Artificial Intelligence". On the basis of artificial intelligence, it is possible to quickly and accurately screen out medical-industrial cross-templates that are close to personalized patient needs, after which only some simple planning and design are required. Such an intelligent manufacturing cloud platform can greatly save time, reduce enterprise costs, and facilitate future personalized medical device registration and certification and clinical application translation.
"Bio-3D printing has become an extremely promising technology for clinical translation in creating tissues and organs with physiological structural functions and capable of self-repair." Prof. Jinwu Wang said, "Thanks to bio-3D printing, we can now perform high-throughput drug screening through 3D printed organoids. For example, tumor cells of tumor patients are printed into multiple small units of the same tumor, so that the most effective personalized drug for treating patients with that tumor can be screened." With the support of the Key R&D Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Prof. Jinwu Wang's team has also developed a bio-3D printing robot using the technology combination of bio-3D printing and robotics, which has prepared the experimental research aspect for the future entry of bio-3D printing into the field of minimally invasive treatment for bone and joint cartilage repair.
The main applications of Prof. Wang's team in the medical field are preoperative models and guides, 3D printed endoprosthesis and rehabilitation aids. Prof. Wang Jinwu focused on the application of orthopedic devices in the field of rehabilitation aids, which is summarized as "one old and one small".
The term "one old" refers to the fact that most people will develop inversion or valgus of the knee joint after the age of 60. The two main causes of knee pain are mechanical and inflammatory factors, of which mechanical factors can be treated with orthotics. Personalized 3D printed orthoses are lightweight, safe and effective for every patient who needs treatment. For some patients with early and mid-stage knee pain, it can significantly slow down the time to joint replacement or even eliminate the need for joint replacement. The 3D-printed knee orthosis developed by the team has not only obtained the medical device registration certificate, but also has been clinically applied in some hospitals in Shanghai and other provinces and cities.
The "one small" refers to the skeletal deformities that arise during the development of children can also be treated by 3D printed orthoses. There are two typical examples of orthotic applications, both of which are currently being researched by Prof. Wang Jinwu's team. One is scoliosis orthopedics, scoliosis in children was pointed out in the 2020 session of the two sessions has become the third "killer" after obesity, myopia, China's child and adolescent health, it is recommended that the prevention and control of scoliosis in children and adolescents as soon as possible.
The incidence of scoliosis is 3%-5% in the literature, but in recent years, many scholars have found through research and screening of a large sample of children that the incidence actually exceeds 10%. While it is possible to correct the scoliosis during development with the use of 3D printed orthoses, if left untreated, surgery is required after the scoliosis reaches approximately 40°. Surgery is expensive and traumatic for children and adolescents, and post-operative complications can result in paraplegia, which can have a significant impact on society and families.
Other problems in children are malocclusions, such as misalignment, retrusion, crowding or malocclusion, with a prevalence of over 80%. This condition can also be treated with 3D printed invisible braces. Above, thanks to the 3D printed medical appliance intelligent manufacturing cloud platform developed by the team, 3D printed orthodontic appliances can be made for children and elderly people quickly and easily.
The team of key R&D projects of the Ministry of Science and Technology led by Academician Dai Kerong and Professor Wang Jinwu has also achieved clinical translation through drug screening by bio-3D printing technology, which can clarify whether some drugs are hepatotoxic and nephrotoxic, in addition to personalized screening of tumor and other drugs.
Nature reported the bio-3D printing project by Prof. Wang Jinwu's team of Academician Dai Kerong of the Ninth People's Hospital of Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine. The development of the technology and the realization of the final clinical translation application are inseparable from the digital design, personalized 3D manufacturing and cloud platform of artificial intelligence and intelligent manufacturing. Shanghai Jiao Tong University has completed the initial construction of the disease library and expert template library, which will be maintained by dedicated AI and software engineers, doctors and related researchers.
Bio-3D printing is the crown jewel of the 3D printing field, and it uses a 3D printing material we call bio-ink. Bio-ink contains cells, factors, and some mechanisms composed of biological materials. In the field of cellular drugs, no cellular drugs have been approved in our country yet, and even for stem cells, they are mostly at the stage of clinical trials. Therefore, only when cellular drugs are approved first, bio-3D printing can achieve zero breakthrough in terms of registration certificate. At the same time, the preservation, quality control, pollution prevention and regulation of bio-ink are facing bottlenecks of safety and efficacy, all of which are currently difficult in clinical translation.
Professor Wang added: "Of course, our national Sichuan University academician Zhang Xingdong proposed the use of animal-derived type I collagen or bioactive materials with a certain structure as the main component, without additional growth factors and drugs, to induce the differentiation of stem cells into chondrocyte cell lines, and ultimately achieve the regeneration of articular cartilage, suitable for the treatment of focal articular cartilage defects caused by trauma, degeneration regenerative repair. If we use it as a biomaterial to print through bio-3D printing, it can be clinically translated as a bio-3D printed product in the future. Regarding this research direction, our team is also assisting the participating units of the relevant Ministry of Science and Technology projects to jointly promote the clinical translation work, and we have already completed the relevant animal tests and are also making relevant preparations before the clinical GCP at the Ninth Hospital, which is expected to enter the clinical trial stage soon."
Many stem cell drugs have already entered the clinic in Europe, America and Japan, and Prof. Wang believes that China will soon achieve a breakthrough from zero to one in this area as well. Especially in the field of digital medicine, China has gone from following Europe and the United States to running neck and neck with them, and now we have achieved overtaking in some fields.
With the continuous development of digital technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence and metaverse in recent years, the whole medical field is also developing in the direction of informatization, intelligence and digitalization. In particular, medical devices are developing towards personalization and minimally invasive, especially with the breakthrough research progress of absorbable biomaterials, the development from inactive endophytes to biologically active personalized endophytes will be a major development trend in the future.
Professor Wang believes that digital medical technology, 3D printed medical devices and biological 3D printing will be a future direction in clinical translation, and the rate of future market development will be an accelerated process. With the development of technology and the deepening of aging, the application of personalized medicine will become more and more widespread. In particular, biological 3D printing robots, high throughput screening of 3D printed organoid drugs, and the development of 3D printed personalized medical device intelligent manufacturing cloud platform will all help to realize personalized, minimally invasive and intelligent medical treatment to better benefit the disabled and society.
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Foreword: In the 3 months of the ups and downs of the epidemic in Shanghai, many friends have been asking me when the last two articles on blockchain will be released. Now, with the stabilization of the epidemic, my writing status has gradually returned. I'd like to say sorry to those who have been waiting, and I'd like to thank everyone for their care and help during the epidemic.
When we talk about blockchain today, we often think of bitcoin, ethereum, NFT and the hot meta-universe nowadays. Here I will not talk about their actual investment value, I will only discuss about the prospect and direction of the application of blockchain technology in 3D printing design platform.
First of all, we need to understand how the concept of 3D printing design platform was birthed? There are many 3D printing platforms on the internet today, every 3D handicraft factory has its own 3D printing platform, and there are several mature design platforms such as: CG Model Network and Moore Network. Secondly, because the technical characteristics of 3D printing make printing data models become very fast, so the majority of 3D printing platforms want to add design to their platform services, and thus 3D printing design platforms have emerged. However, I found that the 3D printing design platform on the market today generally exists in a phenomenon: hard combination. 3D printing is part of the manufacturing industry, design is part of the art design range, so the manufacturing platform thinking to build an art design platform will produce some problems such as: less customers, less designers and less models.
The above three "less" problems boil down to one problem, namely: how to attract people to enter and use the platform. Now the 3D printing design platform is a two-way complementary operation logic, the platform hopes to attract customers with design needs through 3D printing and attract customers with 3D printing needs through design, but unfortunately the reality and ideal is often the opposite. Then to solve this problem I think we have to go in two steps.
Step 1: How to attract designers to the platform. First of all, we have to make it clear that the priority of designers is higher than that of customers, and this is the same reason as the drop. Tic-Tac was the first to solve the problem of no drivers, so much so that Tic-Tac was the first company internal staff every day outside the car so that the platform's drivers can receive a single, and give a generous reward. On the contrary, 3D printing design platform, I think the most attractive gold sign for designers today is blockchain technology, because blockchain technology can put design fees directly into the pockets of designers. Now all design platforms and 3D printing design platform, the platform and the designer is a subordinate relationship, because the customer's payment is first played to the platform and then the platform will pay the designer's design fees, this process for the designer there is a fatal risk: the financial disputes caused by the poor operation of the platform, and blockchain technology can circumvent this risk. Blockchain technology converts the traditional up-and-down relationship into a parallel relationship, and the customer payment is no longer paid to a specific account, but to the chain jointly constructed by the platform and the designer.
Of course, blockchain technology is not only limited to currency, its real value lies in the information composed of data can be put into the chain, NFT is the best example, NFT is the picture through a specific port transfer to the chain, so that the picture in the chain has a unique, and now the NFT has been upgraded from two-dimensional data to three-dimensional movable data. It is easy to imagine that in the future all projects from start to finish can be done in the chain, from the communication of the project process to the production and transmission of data, as well as printing and delivery, everything is available in the chain and each party has all the data. This is also beneficial for the platform, for example, the platform no longer needs to worry about designers and clients communicating privately and thus disengaging from the platform. As long as it is on the chain, the platform can be assured that designers and clients can communicate directly to improve the efficiency and completion of the project.
Step 2: how to attract customers to the platform. Design platform and design company are two concepts, the company seeks high net worth customers, the platform is what kind of customers have to be accepted, now the 3D printing design platform is actually more like a company. Blockchain technology can turn the 3D printing design platform into a real platform similar to a certain treasure network, and the designers are the shopkeepers. Under the premise of taking the first step, the platform can ensure that each customer can find the corresponding designer according to their actual needs, and intervene to solve problems when disputes arise between customers and designers, and the platform customer service can make a fair judgment based on the complete data of the blockchain. As long as the platform can do this, I think customers are willing to continue to use it, because there are only three elements that keep customers: price, efficiency and dispute resolution.
In the years I've been making 3D printed artwork, many people in the industry have asked me about 3D printing design platforms. In most cases I don't really give a positive answer, because of the old Chinese saying: a line of work is like a mountain. If the 3D printing platform just provides 3D printing services, then there is no problem with the current model, everyone is doing it very professionally. But when the 3D printing platform to turn into a 3D printing design platform, then the nature of the platform has changed fundamentally. The leading art and design platforms at home and abroad are building their own blockchain such as ARTSY abroad and an art in China, which have opened a digital art platform with blockchain technology as the core structure. In my opinion, technology itself is not good or bad, only advanced and backward. When an advanced technology appears, we need to keep up with the times. Of course the future 3D printing design platform does not have to use blockchain technology, but can a platform whose technology has not kept up with the times attract valuable talents? This is a question worth thinking about.
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Open the "Product Center" menu on the official website of the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center, a set of white background with blue edges, with a display, controller of electronic equipment into view: metal fusion wire additive and subtractive material integrated manufacturing equipment, metal laser melting printer, desktop DLP light-curing molding equipment ... ...These self-developed 3D printing equipment, some have been put into production, printing out plastic or metal parts.
Lu Bingheng, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and professor of Xi'an Jiaotong University, is the head of the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center. He leads hundreds of researchers in research and development to grasp the direction of the technology. Academician Lu Bingheng said, "The industrialization of 3D printing technology requires strategic financial support."
China's 3D printing "pioneer"
In 1992, Lu Bingheng went to the United States for exchange study. In a visit to the automotive mold enterprises, a 3D printing equipment caught his attention: "As long as the CAD data of the product into, you can make the prototype out." Lu Bingheng immediately decided to include 3D printing in the research object. Lu Bingheng said that Chinese enterprises have a strong production capacity, but the product development capacity is insufficient and the development speed is slow, this technology can help enterprises to achieve new product development quickly and at low cost. Lu Bingheng initially wanted to introduce 3D printing equipment, but at that time a core component laser to sell 30,000 U.S. dollars. Lu Bingheng decided to build one himself. At the end of 1997, the first 3D printing prototype developed by China was born, and in 2000, "some key technologies of additive manufacturing and its equipment", which was completed by Lu Bingheng, won the National Science and Technology Progress Award. Second Prize.
In December 2016, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center was established in Xi'an. The institution is jointly established by Xi'an Jiaotong University, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Northwestern Polytechnic University, Tsinghua University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology and 13 related enterprises with a registered capital of 135 million yuan. Lu Bingheng introduced that the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center has developed various types of additive manufacturing processes and more than 10 major additive manufacturing equipment driven by energy such as laser, electron beam, ion beam, electric arc and electric heat; applied for 387 national patents, including 29 invention patents; and presided over or participated in the development of more than 40 industry standards.
3D printing technology is similar to the swallow mud nest, material little by little accumulation, to create three-dimensional objects, also known as additive manufacturing. 3D printing in new product development, the first manufacturing, etc., can significantly simplify the process, shorten the cycle and reduce costs. The 3D printing is used in a wide range of applications and will have great potential in the future. Lu Bingheng revealed that most of the domestic 3D printing orders are personalized, multi-variety, small batch, technically complex products, it is difficult to produce significant economic benefits and return on investment for a while. At present, 3D printing lacks capital support, which is not conducive to the long-term development of the industry.
"Some investors are more interested in making quick money, for some technically difficult, large investment or longer return period of technology or products, lack of willingness to invest." Lu Bingheng said. A new technology, from research and development to application promotion to experience a longer period of time. Applied to the aviation and medical field of 3D printing products, for example, aviation components must meet the airworthiness conditions, including materials, processes, testing, strength, high and low temperature, which requires a lot of experimental data for verification. 3D printing medical products are approved for clinical applications before, shall collect a large number of experimental data, during which can not be charged to patients, which means that the amount of money spent on research and development is larger.
"The 3D printing industry still has a long way to go, and we hope that more private capital with strategic vision will participate in the development and industrialization of 3D printing technology." Lu Bingheng said.
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Concrete is endowed with good printability and strength through the infiltration of stones by cement, and is also a common material for architectural 3D printing. Inspired by concrete, Professor He Yong's team (EFL team) from the School of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, proposed a new idea of "bio-concrete" ink: pre-functionalized cell-laden microspheres as "stones", high concentration of GelMA hydrogel prepolymerization solution as "cement", and a new "bio-concrete" ink. The team has developed a robotic in situ bio-3D printing system to achieve in situ repair of irregular wounds.
In situ bio-3D printing system combines surgical robotics and bio-3D printing technology to regenerate and repair tissue by depositing therapeutic bioink directly on the defect according to the morphology of the patient's tissue. In-situ bio-3D printing has many advantages because of the variability of application scenarios, which add many demanding requirements compared to conventional bio-3D printing.
1. Variable environment at the printing end: in the in situ printing scenario, the printing environment may be a battlefield, disaster relief, and other environmentally variable occasions, requiring stable ink rheology performance that does not affect printing performance when the printing environment changes from low to high temperatures over a wide temperature range.
2. repair at the blood and water and other effects: the ink should be able to maintain the structure at higher body temperatures and infiltration environment filled with blood and water does not collapse, the printed cells can efficiently survive, and rapid functionalization to play a role in damage repair as soon as possible.
3. Rapid functionalization: Compared with conventional biological 3D printing, which can be functionalized by prolonged perfusion, in situ printing requires the printed tissues to perform emergency functions quickly, and how to make the printed tissues functional quickly is an urgent problem.
4. superior adhesion properties: the printed structure needs to form a certain bond with the defective tissue to prevent it from detaching from the defect in the in vivo repair and causing secondary damage.
5. Acute rescue and treatment portability: the ink is suitable to be carried in the field in first aid kits for military, firefighting and other high-risk areas of emergency relief.
Compared with conventional bio-ink, "bio-concrete" ink has the following characteristics.
1. low strength cellular microspheres in the ink and high concentration of hydrogel printing in the microscopic similar to a series of microspheres + spring, local low modulus, overall high modulus, both cell development and printing structure shape maintenance ability.
2. the ink is not directly using cells as raw material, but cell spheres that have been cultured and have microstructure function, which can function faster in damaged locations after printing and accelerate tissue repair.
3. the ink has good temperature stability and can be printed in situ within the range of 4-37 °C.
4. since the ink body is a stable cured hydrogel microsphere, its deposition in the blood-water environment can also maintain the 3D morphology.
5. good adhesion of the printed structures thanks to the infiltration and hydrogen bonding of the hydrogel prepolymerization solution on the surface of the defective tissue.
6. the ink can be carried to the field by liquid nitrogen freezing, which is expected to be used for acute treatment in harsh environments such as battlefield and disaster relief.
In order to verify the adaptability of "bio-concrete" ink in in-situ printing scenarios, researchers have characterized the ink's rheological robustness, in-situ printability, composite mechanical properties, print/tissue binding, and in vivo repair ability, and designed an emergency rescue kit to make the ink system more portable.
Rheological robustness: Unlike crystals that have a fixed melting point (freezing point), the sol/gel state of temperature-sensitive bioink matrix materials such as gelatin is greatly influenced by temperature, which makes its rheological properties susceptible to temperature effects. In rheological characterization, the "bio-concrete" ink exhibits Bingham fluid properties and is highly robust to a wide range of temperature variations (4-37 °C) due to the dominant position of hydrogel microspheres in the ink system, allowing it to adapt to the complex and variable environmental conditions of in situ printing scenarios.
In situ printability: "Bio Concrete" inks can form uniform extruded fibers at low, medium and high temperatures at the extrusion end. Also, on the deposition side, it can be observed that even when conventional inks are extruded at the right extrusion printing temperature, they quickly over-solubilize and turn into a liquid, losing their 3D structure due to the high temperature of the receiving platform and the "blood" that fills it. The "bio-concrete" ink, on the other hand, is a stable photocross-linked microsphere, which can maintain a good 3D structure even in a high temperature and "blood" filled receiving environment. This demonstrates the ability of "bio-concrete" inks to adapt to the complex environment of the patient's injury during in-situ printing.
Print body/tissue bonding: The "cement" component of the "bioconcrete" ink can infiltrate the tiny gaps in the defective tissue, and after photo-crosslinking, it can form greater friction with the defective tissue and form stronger tissue bonding under the action of hydrogen bonding, preventing the print The photo-crosslinking creates a stronger tissue bonding force with the defect tissue and prevents the print from detaching.
Compound mechanical properties: The results of mechanical tests and simulations show that the high-strength network formed by the low-strength hydrogel microspheres in the "bioconcrete" ink and the high-concentration GelMA prepolymer after curing solves the contradiction between biocompatibility and mechanical properties, and confirms its mechanical suitability for in-situ printing.
Tissue repair ability: Since the "stone" phase is pre-functionalized cellular microspheres, it has good activity after printing to the traumatic location and can be functionalized rapidly, which can achieve effective repair of rat skull in 4 weeks.
Portability: A portable solution was designed for the "bio-concrete" ink, including an emergency kit with a thermos cup and liquid nitrogen for the "stone" and "cement" components, a mobile power supply, a USB heating pad, a sterile syringe, and a USB memory stick. The USB heating pad, sterile syringe, 3D printing nozzle, reagent spoon, paper towel, etc. can be combined with small robotic printing system or manual printing mode to quickly perform in-situ repair surgery in the field, making it suitable for on-site emergency rescue work in multiple scenarios in the future.
In addition, in real clinical cases, the tissue defects of patients can be caused by a variety of reasons, and the morphology and size of the defective structures caused by the accident can be very different. In order to verify the in-situ printing and repair capability of "bioconcrete" inks for different tissue defects, four rat "patient" models with different shapes and sizes of skull defects (approximately "rectangular The four rat "patient" models with different shapes and sizes of cranial defects (stretching body defect models with "rectangle", "square", "trapezoid", and "triangle" as the base surface) were used as four "patient" models with different cranial injury patterns and requiring in situ printing for repair. The in-situ printing platform is a robotic arm system.
A robotic arm system was used for the in situ printing platform, and a syringe pump system was clamped to the arm to provide a constant flow of ink. A conical plastic nozzle was used for the in situ printhead. In-situ printing was performed on the "patient" defect according to the different 3D structures of the skull defects of the "patient". After printing, the ink was light-cured using a 405 nm blue flashlight, and the patient's wound was finally sutured and disinfected. The experimental results showed that the "bio-concrete" ink is highly feasible and repairable for in situ repair of each "patient".
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The ecosystem of new energy vehicles is open, changing and dynamic. Traditional cars typically take three years from design finalization to new vehicle shipment, during which time the processes and supply chain for the production of these parts go into a solid state. A car company like Tesla, on the other hand, has software that is updated almost every month. The gene of digitalization can be said to be rooted in the blood of the new car-making forces.
The digitization brought about by 3D printing has enabled humanity to generate, for the first time, a real threshold of net economic gain: a demand-driven shift from overproduction to demand-driven production by synchronizing customer behavior with producer behavior.
3D printing is a technology with distinct digital characteristics, which means that additive manufacturing can change the way products are produced intrinsically, not only for personalization, but also for functional-oriented manufacturing, which makes 3D printing a "natural fit" with new energy vehicles in terms of manufacturing genetics.
According to the ACAM Aachen Additive Manufacturing Center, the ACAM Aachen Additive Manufacturing Center's (ACAM Aachen) vision for additive manufacturing in terms of multifunctional materials is an infinite combination of materials and technologies, with the ultimate goal of click-and-produce. Level 1 is a predictable additive manufacturing process; Level 2 is an automated additive manufacturing process; Level 3 is fully automated additive manufacturing (including pre-processing and post-processing); and Level 4 is an integrated and fully automated combination of different manufacturing processes [1]. Currently, the development of additive manufacturing worldwide is mostly at the Level 0 level.
Automotive production requires a high degree of automation, high efficiency, low cost, and consistent quality, which seems to have a lot of "gaps" with the current level of development of 3D printing. Therefore, the current status and future trends of 3D printing in automotive manufacturing need to be understood in the context of the characteristics of 3D printing technology.
According to ACAM Aachen Additive Manufacturing Center, on the one hand, 3D printing has changed the manufacturing logic. Usually for the same product, the more quantities produced by traditional manufacturing technology, the more the cost per part of the product tends to decrease; while for additive manufacturing, the correlation between cost per part and production volume is independent, which is a factor to be considered when considering scalability. On the other hand, regarding the complexity of the product. Usually, when producing parts through traditional manufacturing techniques, the more complex the product, the higher the cost, and the more expensive the company needs to invest (including new tooling and even new equipment to achieve it); whereas for additive manufacturing, the correlation between part complexity and cost is also independent, and the complexity of the part geometry usually does not bring additional manufacturing costs.
For automobiles, while there is a trend toward smaller batches for automotive production, the current integration of 3D printing technology with automobiles is not a factor in this area where the correlation between cost and yield of 3D printing technology is independent, but rather where 3D printing technology achieves more complex products.
In the field of metal 3D printing to reduce the cost of parts, the indirect metal 3D printing technology represented by binder injection metal 3D printing technology, with high speed and low cost has gained a high degree of industry attention. The HP metal 3D printing technology adopted by the public is exactly the binder injection metal 3D printing technology.
The binder injection metal 3D printing technology, from the perspective of production efficiency and economy, fully meets the requirements of automotive-oriented mass production applications. And the rich variety of printable materials (from metal to ceramic, metal-to-metal composites, ceramic-to-metal composites, etc.) further extends the applicable scenarios of binder injection metal 3D printing technology.
In addition to aluminum alloys and copper alloys used in automobiles, steel materials suitable for binder metal 3D printing technology currently include 17-4PH stainless steel, 304L stainless steel, 316L stainless steel, M2 tool steel, H13 tool steel, and also 4140 stainless steel, 420 stainless steel, 4340 stainless steel, 4605 stainless steel, and other materials under development [3].
In addition, the rapid development of plastic 3D printing and carbon fiber composite 3D printing has enriched the technological options for automotive 3D printing.
The automotive industry needs to take advantage of the specific advantages of 3D printing technology to enhance product design, however, one of the major challenges to break through in order to use 3D printing for specific automotive parts production is the economics. Currently, most of the automotive parts used for 3D printing are small batches of a dozen or so, and to increase to the up to one million production volumes commonly required by the automotive industry, 3D printing will have to break through the economics barrier.
The following will explore the current status and development trend of 3D printing technology in the field of new energy vehicles by introducing the latest application progress of 3D printing technology in Volkswagen, Ford, BMW and other companies.
l Volkswagen
VW released plans in 2019 to use HP metal 3D printing technology in VW vehicles, starting with mass customization and manufacturing of decorative parts, and integrating HP's HP Metal Jet metal 3D printed structural parts into next-generation vehicles as soon as possible, with an eye on increasing part sizes and technical requirements.
VW aims to manufacture 50,000 to 100,000 football-sized parts per year, which may include things like gearshifts and mirror mounts. Additive manufacturing is being deployed in the growing electric vehicle production sector for its lightweighting benefits. Currently, VW has established the California Innovation and Engineering Center (IECC), introduced a unique concept car with integrated 3D printing, and soon announced the production of 10,000 metal parts on the HP Metal Jet with GKN and HP. It is this milestone that paves the way for VW's continued collaboration with HP and the integration of VW's 3D printed structural parts into its next generation of vehicles.
Metal binder jet 3D printing technology will drive 3D printing technology in VW manufacturing toward maturity, making the technology cost effective. To take advantage of binder jetting, VW is expanding its partnership with HP to lay out additional capacity and bringing in Siemens to provide specialized software for the technology.
With Siemens' automation and software solutions, VW will be able to develop and produce parts faster, with more flexibility and using fewer resources. So far, the first automotive parts manufactured using binder jetting have been sent to VW's Osnabrück plant for certification. The part is used in the A-pillar of the VW T-Roc convertible and, according to the data, is half the weight of a conventional part made from steel sheet.
l Ford
Ford announced in 2021 that it plans to adopt 3D printing technology in the manufacture of vehicles at scale. Ford has had some degree of success with 3D printing technology before, though at the time it only involved lower volumes. But Ford's technology now extends well beyond low-volume 3D printing production applications, with 3D printed parts being developed for full production of Ford's "very popular models.
Ford's powder for binder jet metal 3D printing is Al6061, and the implications of successfully applying aluminum to 3D printed production of automotive parts are significant: the shift from traditional manufacturing processes to 3D printing processes will reduce weight, save space, and improve part performance by simplifying design, as well as saving cost and time.
For 3D printing next-generation electric motors, Ford has also formed an alliance with ThyssenKrupp and RWTH Aachen University to begin a study to develop a flexible and sustainable production process for next-generation electric vehicles. The name of the project being developed is HaPiPro2, referring to hairpin technology. Hairpin winding is a new technology in the field of electric motors, where rectangular copper rods replace wound copper wires. The process is easier to automate than conventional wound electric motors and is particularly popular in the automotive sector because it can significantly reduce manufacturing time.
The development of motor stator windings for electric vehicles is often a well-known bottleneck. The classical round wire winding has many limitations: the copper conductors, the winding process and the slot geometry must match; the conductors wound around each other form a solid pattern; in addition, the round conductors (the classical conductor shape) do not fit geometrically well with the trapezoidal recesses, with the result that each recess is half filled with copper, thus creating voids. The relatively small conductor cross-section ensures larger electrical heat losses.
3D printing avoids this development hurdle by eliminating the need for almost any tooling. Since conventional production involves complex bending and soldering processes, the time savings from 3D printing pay off, especially in the so-called hairpin windings.
Allowing a higher fill rate of copper, 3D printing offers unique advantages in this regard. Currently, the market is familiar with L-PBF selective laser metal melting 3D printing, as well as binder jet metal 3D printing, both of which are the most dominant application technologies.
By 3D printing motor copper coil windings, we are changing the way we have thought about motor coil design for over 100 years. The traditional process of copper wire or copper sheet is difficult to show the optimal design in the small space of motor stator and rotor, and 3D printing will bring certain changes.
l BMW
BMW held a joint project kick-off meeting for IDAM in Munich in March 2019 to pave the way for additive manufacturing to enter automotive series production. The IDAM team is pushing additive manufacturing technology in the direction of specific requirements to produce parts of consistent quality as well as individual spare parts based on specific components. The goal is to manufacture at least 50,000 series-produced parts and more than 10,000 spare parts per year using 3D printing technology. the IDAM line contains an open architecture that can be adapted to any LPBF system (selective laser metal melting 3D printing technology).
In 2020, BMW invested 15 million euros (over 100 million RMB) in the official launch of the Munich 3D printing plant, which establishes the BMW Group as a leader in additive manufacturing technology for the automotive industry.
Supported by the German IDAM program, BMW's 3D printing plant in Munich has also built a modular and almost fully automated 3D printing production line. The line covers the entire process from digital design to 3D printing and manufacturing of parts to post-processing. Thanks to the modular structure of the line, which can be upgraded if necessary, the individual modules can be adapted to different production requirements and also allow flexible control of the process steps. By taking into account the requirements for integration into the automotive production line, the project partners have reduced the manual part of the process chain from about 35% at present to less than 5%. At the same time, the unit cost of 3D printed metal parts was cut in half.
The above cases illustrate that many new designs, although not yet industrialized and still in their initial stages, will be overtaken by other companies and will soon find themselves at a competitive disadvantage if manufacturing companies do not make early preparations and innovate in spare parts and prototypes, starting with innovative thinking about design.
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