Intro to Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing)
About the Modules
The 3D printing module built around the information from primarily 3D Hubs Links to an external site. and supplemented with content from other sources. To reinforce concepts presented, a series of quizzes and hands-on activities (tutorials) will be used.
The first task is to complete the introduction module to 3D printing. After completing this module, you can work on any of the other 3D printing modules, i.e. processes, design considerations, materials.
Types of Manufacturing
When considering how we make things, we can classify manufacturing techniques into 3 broad categories:
- Formative Manufacturing
- Subtractive Manufacturing
- Additive Manufacturing
Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing)
As shown above, additive manufacturing builds (adds material) upon the existing material to ultimately create the end-use part. 3D Printing is a suite of technologies developed over the last 3 decades that all manufacture additively. The infographic below from 3D Hubs, shows the diversity of the 3D printing technologies. Note that there are numerous categories, each with various processes that use a variety of materials.
Arguably, the most well known of these technologies is Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), which is also known as Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF). Solid Concepts (now owned by Stratasys) provides a great overview of this process:
FDM is not the only process that takes advantage of the fact that some plastics can be melted by heating them and then solidified again by cooling. The Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) process employs the same strategy but starts with a powder rather than a spool of filament.
The heating of plastics is not the only way to 3D print with plastics. Both FDM and SLS use thermoplastic polymers that melt and solidify when heated and cooled, respectively. In the case of SLS, a laser is used to selectively melt the powder in each layer. Stereolithography (SLA) is another technique that uses a laser to 3D print but unlike SLS, SLA uses liquid resins (thermoset polymers) that polymerize (cure) when hit by the laser.
In conclusion, there are many different 3D printing processes that all achieve the same overall task of taking 3D models from the virtual world to the real world. Throughout this module, you will explore the theory and develop practical skills to more effectively and efficiently fabricate 3D end-use parts to meet your needs.