Injection Moulding Asia 3D Printing
Disruptive technology: boon or bane 3D printing utilising polymers will be valued at
Move from prototyping expected While metal 3D printing and additive manufacturing technologies have continued to capture a significant share of growth and investments over the last several years, additive manufacturing with plastics continues to be tightly linked to legacy applications in prototyping and modelling despite a significant interest in moving them into manufacturing and production. SmarTech adds that a new trend is becoming established for manufacturers who are moving away from traditional moulding processes to 3D printing due to factors including costs, output, and lead times. SmarTech also says that leaders in the 3D printing industry are now fully committed to designing and implementing upgrades, new process architectures, and post processing equipment to improve reliability, predictability, machine productivity, and automation. These efforts differ significantly in practical implementation depending on print technology, but are setting the stage for a true manufacturing revolution in polymers and plastics, it adds. Until these new technical upgrades and developments can fully come online in the market, polymer 3D printing technology has continued to grow based on adding value in more concrete areas of application including producing end-use parts indirectly by printing various kinds of tooling, says the report. Other companies continue to develop processes aimed primarily at prototyping and modelling, which remains for the most part the backbone of the industry.
US$16 billion by 2027, despite the industry being involved mainly in prototyping at the moment.
Nonetheless, this emerging technology could be a boon or bane as a disruptive technology that
could have the potential for threats and security implications if not used in the right way, says another report.
Escalating to dizzy heights of growth Additive manufacturing or 3D printing is a transformational technology that holds the potential to revolutionise entire industries by making it possible, and in a cost-effective manner, to mass manufacture entirely individualised products. It also allows for design optimisations and functional improvements, such as lighter designs, that are impossible to create with standard manufacturing technologies. As a result, more industries, including the aerospace, automotive, footwear and the eyewear industry, are adopting 3D printing. Thus, the 3D printing market will be valued at US$16 billion in industry revenues from the sale of printers and polymer-based print materials by 2027, according to a study published by SmarTech Publishing. The study says that dentistry, biomedical, automotive and aerospace sectors will drive future market growth over the next decade.
Technology innovations in processes SmarTech’s report also analyses technologies, including material extrusion, powder bed fusion, vat photo polymerisation, material jetting and binder jetting processes, as well as materials ranging from thermoplastic filaments, pellets and powders to thermoplastic composites. It says that extrusion-based 3D printing generated more than 41% of all hardware revenues for polymer 3D printing in 2017. Here, it says, efforts to industrialise the classic extrusion printing concept are taking shape primarily in two areas: increasing the isotropic properties and Z-axis strength of parts, and improving the potential for high throughput manufacturing potential. Companies like BASF, Stratasys, BigRep, Essentium, and others are working to redesign and improve filament extruders, develop thermoplastic composite materials, create multi-axis extrusion systems, and focus on high volume manufacturing using printers. In vat photopolymerisation technology, the possibilities and scope of layer-free photopolymerisation continue to expand to push the technology into new
Research company Frost & Sullivan says that 3D printing will grow at a CAGR of 20.3% between 2017 and 2024 in the aerospace sector, with Boeing and Airbus to expedite adoption of the technology
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