Emerging Technology Report of 3D Printer:
By Ali Sugule 11/22/13
3D printer, otherwise known as additive manufacturing is a machine that can turn a blueprint into a physical object. 3D printer is a process for making a physical object from a three-dimensional digital model, typically by laying down many successive thin layers of a material. For example if you feed it a wrench, it produces a physical, working wrench or if you scan a coffee mug with a 3D scanner, send the file to the printer, and produce thousands of identical mugs. 3D printing can be used to create objects. At its most basic, 3D printing would allow you to design bookends that look like your face, or even custom action figures. 3D printing could be used to make simple machines like bicycles and skateboards. More elaborately, when combined with on-demand circuit board printing, 3D printing could be used to make simple household electronics like a custom remote control for your TV that is molded to fit your hand, with all of the buttons exactly where you want them. 3D printers use a variety of very different types of additive manufacturing technologies, but they all share one core thing in common: they create a three dimensional object by building it layer by successive layer, until the entire object is complete. Each of these printed layers is a thinly-sliced, horizontal cross-section of the eventual object. Current state-of-the-art applications: 3D printing is capable of mixing many materials, it is now able to produce a wide variety of 3D objects and seems to be everywhere. The technology is already widely used and becoming influential in many industries to make jewelry and other bespoke fashion items, fashion and lighting design, automobile and aircraft industries, custom-made musical instruments creation, weapon manufacturing, dental laboratories to produce crowns, bridges and implants, as well as in the production of hearing aids and prostheses, offering patients a perfect fit.

Most current 3D printers are not used to create final consumer products. Rather, they are generally employed for rapid product prototyping, or to produce molds or mound masters that will in turn allow the production of final items. Such printing of 3D objects already enables engineers to check the fit of different parts long before they commit to costly production, architects to show detailed and relatively low-cost scale models to their clients, and medical professionals or archaeologists to handle full-size, 3D copies of bones printed from 3D scan data. The range of products that have employed 3D printers in their design process or to produce final molds or mound masters is constantly growing

Business impact and Social impact: 3D printing is going to impact so many industries, such as automotive, medical, business & industrial equipment, education, architecture, and consumer-product industries. Leading companies are now using 3D printing to evaluate more concepts in less time to improve decisions early in product development. As the design process moves forward, technical decisions are iteratively tested at every step to guide decisions, both big and small, to achieve improved performance, lower manufacturing costs, delivering higher quality and more successful product introductions. 3D printing can offer benefits across the entire creation process from initial concept design to initial manufacturing and all steps in between. Different applications have unique needs and understanding those application requirements is critical when choosing a
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3D printer. Multiple systems may offer broader use opportunities than a single system, so identifying a unique requirements to apply 3D printing across the entire design-to-manufacture process can shorten time-to-market, improve product performance, streamline and cost-reduce manufacturing, and improve product quality and customer satisfaction will help to define the ideal 3D printing capability of the organization. Also, 3D printing can provide great savings on assembly costs because it can print already assembled products. With 3D printing, companies can now experiment with new ideas and numerous design iterations with no extensive time or tooling expense. They can decide if product concepts are worth to allocate additional resources. 3D printing could even challenge mass production method in the future. In the meantime, 3D printing provides the ability for companies to be proactive, and to make better products. They can produce designs quicker and cheaper, allowing more people from marketing to the factory floor to see and evaluate the products, and make changes where necessary. They can build multiple prototypes, to get in more hands, and have more input or they can build inexpensive prototypes for focus groups, and evaluate your products before they go to production. 3-D printing is particularly suited to low-volume, short production runs offering companies a more flexible, cost-effective and speedy alternative to traditional mass production methods. Multiple prototypes and designs will help eliminate costly mistakes, and produce better products. 3D printing is enabling faster first article production to support marketing and sales functions, and early adopter customers. 3D printing is enabling higher productivity, economical customization, improved quality and greater efficiency in a number of industries. Ongoing and future developments: The process of growing of 3D printer and creating objects layer by layer also means that, with 3-D printing, it is possible to create more intricate and complex structures than can be done using traditional manufacturing techniques. 3D printers have many promising areas of potential future application. For example, NASA is working on the largest rocket ever constructed that is projected to take humans to Mars by 2030. Bypassing traditional processes for building rocket parts, which require welding of seams, creating a single seamless 3D printed piece means less chance for leakage. It also cuts down the cost of manufacturing by almost half. Recently, NASA tested 3D-printed rocket engine injectors in hot-fire tests, exposing them to extreme temperatures and pressures. The testing regime is helping NASA assess the potential of 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, to make space exploration cheaper and more efficient.
Also, the US startup Modern Meadow is working on creating meat and leather products without killing animals because they said, animal products are just collections of tissues. So what if instead of starting with animals, we started with cells using a stem-cell sample taken from a biopsy, the cell is cultured until it’s multiplied. Then this bio ink that contains hundreds of live cells is printed, and the cells form living tissue.
In the meantime, 3D printer is making possible for creating Bionic ear and jaw bone. Right now, the potential for 3D printing in the medical sphere is incredible. Last year, an 83-year-old Belgian woman received the first 3D printed jaw bone, a transplant that was tailored specifically for her facial structure. A bionic ear was printed from a concoction of calf cells and hydrogel and antennae made from nanoparticles. The first version allowed hearing at a superhuman range, powerful enough to pick up radio waves.

Conclusion:
3D printing has a bright future, not least in rapid prototyping (where its impact is already highly significant), but also in the manufacture of many kinds of plastic and metal objects, in medicine, in the arts, and in outer space. Desktop 3D printers for the home are already a reality, and should cost no more than a few hundred dollars by 2015. 3D printers capable of outputting in colour and multiple materials also exist and will continue to improve to a point where functional products will be able to be output. As devices that will provide a solid bridge between cyberspace and the physical world and as an important manifestation of the Second Digital Revolution 3D printing is therefore likely to play some part in all of our futures. References: http://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2013/02/article_0004.html http://www.osa-opn.org/home/articles/volume_24 http://www.3ders.org/articles/20130724-mit-develops-new-ways-to-streamline-simplify-3d-printing.html