From Additive Manufacturing to 3D/4D Printing 2

Current Techniques, Improvements and their Limitations

Jean-Claude André

• Publisher: Wiley-ISTE
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781119437376
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technologie et ingénierie
• Subtopic: Microélectronique

Additive manufacturing, which was first invented in France and then applied in the United States, is now 33 years old and represents a market of around 5 billion euros per year, with annual growth of between 20 and 30%. Today, additive manufacturing is experiencing a great amount of innovation in its processes, software, engineering and materials used. Its strength as a process has more recently allowed for the exploration of new niches, ranging from applications at nanometer and decameter scales, to others in mechanics and health. As a result, the limitations of the process have also begun to emerge, which include the quality of the tools, their cost of manufacture, the multi-material aspects, functionalities and surface conditions.

Volume 2 of this series presents the current techniques, improvements and limits of additive manufacturing, providing an up-to-date review of this process.

PART 1
Incremental Innovations and Technologies Pushed to their Limits

1
Incremental Developments of Processes, Machines and Materials

“When things are arranged so that description through using the senses allows us to easily imagine them, we say that they are well-ordered. Otherwise, we say that they are not well-ordered or confused. As the things which we can easily imagine are more pleasant than the others, Man therefore prefers order to confusion, as though, outside of our imagination, order were something found within Nature”. [SPI 94]

“Knowledge… is not a series of coherent theories converging towards an ideal conception. It is not a gradual march towards the truth. Rather it is an ever-greater ocean of mutually incompatible (and perhaps immeasurable) options. Each singular theory, each fairy tale and each myth being part of this collection, forces the others to a state of greater flexibility. All of this contributes, via this rivalry to the development of our awareness”. [FEY 79]

“Our post-modern societies seem to be characterized by a so-called ‘dual loss’: that of tradition and the certainties of pre-modernity. This is based, on the one hand around respect for the past, and that of the modernity myths anchored within a positive view of the future, and in faith in progress. On the other hand, it is based upon a Promethean concept of Man”. [GUY 14]

“Bergson defined the laugh as the ‘superimposition of the mechanical upon the living’. Likewise we could say of industry that it is the superimposition of machinery upon organic concepts, and it longs to become natural. The same can be said of digital being affixed to machinery”. [MUS 14]

“The second stage is to divide each of the difficulties which I will look at into as many fragments as possible, and as may be required to best resolve these difficulties. The third stage is to put my thoughts into order, starting with the simplest and easiest subjects to understand to go up little by little, as if by degrees, to the most complex knowledge”. [DES 92]

“It is important that we do not conceal our uncertainties. This awareness of the frailty of given structures is consubstantial to the scientific approach”. [BAR 16]

“Make the present moment more intense so as to make the moment profitable in the extreme. We thus escape the routine of a life which is limited in space and time, such could be the sense of this present imprisoned within the moment”. [KHE 10]

“The capitalist economy is not and does know not how to be stationary”. [SCH 11/99]

“The entire issue lies within this opposition between gradual and disruptive innovations. Should innovation extend current cycles, support existing structures and make our way of life sustainable? Alternatively should it even open up radically new routes, substitute new technologies for those inherited from the past and revolutionize our societies? Owing to this ambivalence, the rhetoric of technological innovation takes the form of a paradoxical injunction: ‘Let everything change, so that nothing changes!’ As humans we recognize that this is hardly a stimulating approach’”. [KLE 15]

“However, within many management teams, the appetite for, or the tolerance of risk, are perceived as interesting esoteric topics of conversation. This is especially the case for researchers and academics. However it has no actual bearing on their daily activities in terms of strategies, and no impact upon their decision-making processes”. [LOU 17]

1.1. Introduction

The myth of the so-called “industrial revolution”, promised for additive manufacturing, arises when the question concerns new technology creation. However, these myths have their significance. They permit the creation of the given movements and membership of those movements. Nevertheless, any production system only truly has direction if it is both explained and questioned at regular intervals. It can thus maintain a standard of technological excellence relative to a determined future view, preferably a technological view, for the purposes of this chapter. If we consider the innovation market, several principles are at work [GUZ 95, CAR 98]:

• – an initial aspect corresponds to the principal of assimilation depending upon the success of a given new product, or identified as such (the launch of new products on traditional markets, or attacking new markets with advanced products, which have simply been re-tailored). Success can lead to the stabilization of ways of thinking and modes of action;
• – a second aspect is linked to the principle known as plurality, which assumes that a new element (product, process or another aspect) can only be assimilated if it is integrated within a given existing set (linked with the notion of technological rupture);
• – the principle of alignment stipulates that technical skills induced by a technical or organizational change should not exceed (in terms of training, hiring and other outlays) the maximum cost already agreed within the business in other circumstances;
• – the principle of transfer to others is aimed at making the initial research and development effort profitable;
• – the principle of expectation is linked to a response to demand without the business seeking to propose a given offer. Indeed, often the creative offer is only generally included because it flows from a technological innovation that disrupts the course of events.

These observations evidence accelerated production of new products using well-mastered methodologies. Under these conditions, there can be a connection between research temporalities and that of the company managing such research. This is so, as long as scientific “laboratory” expertise is effectively present and it is a question of “genuine” innovation.

Chapter 3 of Volume 1 of this series set out the majority of current technologies for additive manufacturing. We can imagine, within a world undergoing rapid development, that these few technologies grouped together by the authors within the 3D printing technology categories 3, 4 and 7 are ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• PART 1: Incremental Innovations and Technologies Pushed to their Limits
• PART 2: Additive Manufacturing Pushed to its Limits
• PART 3: How Should We Go That One Step Further?
• Conclusion
• Index
• End User License Agreement