If you only know the term "3D printing" and have seen the reports of 3D printing, but don't know the technology behind it, you are still a layman. Why do the media call 3D printing the third industrial revolution? Why does 3D printing subvert manufacturing? How is this new technology different from traditional manufacturing technology?

Three thinking of manufacturing technology

At this time, you need to make clear the three thinking of manufacturing technology: equal material manufacturing, reduced material manufacturing and additive manufacturing. When ancient people wanted to make a bronze, weapon or coin, they usually used the casting process. Casting is an ancient and advanced technology. According to the bronze knives unearthed in Majiayao, Gansu Province, the ancients began to use casting technology more than 5000 years ago. Up to now, the casting process is still an important technology in the manufacturing industry, such as automobile engine block, gearbox block and so on. This kind of manufacturing thinking, represented by casting and injection molding, hardly changes the volume of materials in the manufacturing process, which we call "equal material manufacturing".

Ancient foundry

And the second kind of manufacturing thinking has a long history. For example, if ancient people wanted to make a grass to catch prey, they needed to have a grass head, and then find a stick to sharpen one end of the stick with a knife, and then insert the grass head. By cutting off the redundant parts of the stick, we can achieve the desired structure. This kind of manufacturing thinking is called "reduced material manufacturing". Nowadays, with the development of industrialization, reduced material manufacturing is most widely used, such as machine tool processing, the vast majority of metal parts are produced by machining. Generally, metal bars and blocks are used as raw materials, and the final parts are obtained by cutting tools of machine tools. This kind of reduced material manufacturing technology in the form of manufacturing equipment has a history of 300 years.

Reduced material manufacturing (machining) thread

The third kind of thinking is the protagonist we are going to introduce. We call it "additive manufacturing" (3D printing). Gu Ming thinks that we can make objects by adding materials. For example, building houses in rural areas means building bricks one by one. In this way, "additive manufacturing" has a long history. The process of building a house is to accumulate bricks manually, and the 3D printing in this paper is to control the automatic accumulation of materials by computer program.

Wall manufacturing with additive manufacturing (3D printing) technology

Therefore, strictly speaking, "additive manufacturing" began in 1983, which has a history of 35 years. At that time, chuck hull, the inventor of SLA (stereo lithography apparatuses) 3D printing technology, was working for a small company in the United States, using high-intensity ultraviolet light to solidify liquid plastics into solid. One of its products was coating a table. "At some point I thought about the plastic flakes that we're curing, and I thought maybe I could pile them up to create a prototype," hull said. After numerous attempts, hull finally printed out a small cup. In 1986, hull founded 3D systems to commercialize SLA 3D printing technology. At present, 3D systems has become a global leader in 3D printing.

These are the three main ideas of manufacturing technology. In the past, people were used to using the first two technologies and knew little about 3D printing technology. In recent years, 3D printing technology has been widely concerned. With the strong promotion of the national government, the media and employees, more and more industries begin to try 3D printing technology. From aerospace, military industry, medical treatment, education and scientific research, dentistry, mold, automobile, art and fashion, archaeology, food, shoes, houses and other industries, enterprises and individuals with advanced thinking have made a lot of innovations by using 3D printing technology. There is no doubt that these people have kept up with the trend of the times. After people entered the additive thinking, some problems that were difficult to solve before were solved, and some things that were difficult to imagine before were realized.

Nowadays, as 3D printing technology is becoming more and more mature, printing speed is getting faster and faster, raw material prices are getting cheaper and cheaper, equipment prices are gradually falling, and the application threshold of 3D printing is also getting lower and lower. 3D printing is striving for a new future.