Additive Manufacturing of Linear Continuous Permittivity Profiles and their Application to Cylindrical Dielectric Resonator Antennas

The utilization of additive manufacturing (AM) to engineer the permittivity profile of dielectric resonator antennas (DRAs) is considered. For the first time, the capabilities of AM are exploited to create continuously swept permittivity profiles and applied to cylindrical DRAs. The spatial variant lattices (SVL) synthesis algorithm is...

Discontinuous Long Fibre Reinforced Thermoplastic for Additive Manufacturing

Current large-scale additive manufacturing extruders use short reinforcing fibre-filled thermoplastic pellets, which marginally improve the mechanical performance but are too short to exploit the strength of the fibres fully. Long fibre pellets have much higher potential strength, and the development of higher strength materials could create...

Facilitating Application Identification for 3D Printing in Manufacturing Environments: In pursuit of new 3D printing applications: a bottom-up approach

The use of 3D printing technology in manufacturing environments has experienced rapid growth. Manufacturers have realised the potential of the technology. 3D printing enables the reduction of costs and lead-times of parts, components and tools used in production processes. Adoption of this technology is facing various challenges. A major...

3D printed fiber reinforced lignin: Exploring the options to use wood in an additive manufacturing process

Problem definition and objective - Additive manufacturing has already been developed to use various sorts of plastics, metals, composites and concrete. Until now, the most used composite in building materials, natural wood, has not been used in an additive manufacturing process. The potential of using wood in<br/>an additive manufacturing...

Additive manufacturing with engineering thermoplastics in space: recyclability and radiation protection

In-space manufacturing proves more important now than ever. The capability of creating a sustainable manufacturing strategy for spare parts or tools would significantly improve both mass budget and costs. Therefore, additive manufacturing (3D printing) in space is seen as an enabler of future scenarios that explore beyond the current boundaries...

Running Out Of Gas On The Fast Lane: Repurpose of abandoned drilling rigs in the North Sea

Eventually either the oil and gas supply will be exhausted, or society will develop methods to rely completely on eco-friendly energy sources. What will then happen to the oil industry and their factories and structures? In this hypothetical situation, offshore drilling rigs, structures made of billions of euros worth of steel and concrete, will...

3F3D: Form Follows Force with 3D printing

Topology optimization is the natural counterpart of additive manufacturing, many believes that the technology could revolutionize the way we manufacture our everyday products, changing the way we design and manufacture our products considering of how the process mimics the nature system of manufacturing and design, so-called the biomimicry...

The Impact of 3D Printing on the World Container Transport

Due to the recent hype around 3D printing technology regarding its disruptiveness for global manufacturing and supply chains, and thus transport in general, an attempt has been made to assess its impact on the global maritime container transport for the next 20 years. The first step was to gain insight of the 3D printing technology and its...