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3D Printing News Briefs: December 19, 2017

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It’s getting closer to the end of December, which means the official start of winter is almost here. The days are getting colder, so why not warm your heart with stories of some interesting 3D printed objects – right after we bring you the latest 3D printing business news, that is. In today’s 3D Printing News Briefs, Höganäs has acquired Metasphere Technology, and UL has signed a Letter of Intent with Tooling U-SME to collaborate on additive manufacturing training, while Altair Engineering and solidThinking will soon showcase a preview of Click2Cast 2018. Students in Jerusalem used 3D printed joints to help build a suspended bamboo pavilion, and a man is dealing with his cancer diagnosis by 3D printing his skeleton. Finally, proceeds from the sale of 3D printed Christmas ornaments in Australia are going to help find a cure for muscular dystrophy.

Metasphere Technology Acquired by Höganäs

Urban Rönnbäck, Metasphere Technology founder, and Fredrik Emilson, Höganäs CEO

Swedish startup Metasphere Technology, which was founded in 2009, developed a unique method for atomizing metals, carbides, and ceramics at very high temperatures. Powdered metals producer Höganäs AB will now get to benefit from the startup’s technology, as the company recently acquired Metasphere. The startup’s technology allows for the high temperature melting and atomizing of different kinds of metals, like titanium, and its current customers receive products from the pilot reactor. Raw materials, like carbides and ceramics, that are not usually suited for the process can also be atomized using Metasphere’s technology.

“Metasphere’s technology is unique and innovative. We will be able to offer new and specialized metal powders for surface coating and additive manufacturing, among other areas,” said Fredrik Emilson, Höganäs CEO.

“When we have scaled up to industrial production we will go to market with a broad spectrum of products, mainly within additive manufacturing, where there is a large demand for innovative materials.

“This is a unique process and Metasphere’s plant is top notch. We are excited about making the know-how and technology a part of Höganäs AB.”

UL and Tooling U-SME to Collaborate on AM Training

This week, global safety science company UL and Tooling U-SME, the workforce development arm of the SME organization and a leader in manufacturing workforce and education development, have signed a Letter of Intent that centers on a collaboration between the two to improve development and workforce training efforts for manufacturers that wish to increase their additive manufacturing capabilities. Their combined effort will result in one source for professional AM certification, as it aligns both training and certification. The new AM certification program will debut at the 2018 AMUG Conference and RAPID + TCT, both in April.

Jeannine Kunz, Vice President of Tooling U-SME, said, “Both Tooling U-SME and UL have great strengths in our respective areas and by working to align workforce training and certification efforts, we can greatly impact the professional development of the manufacturing workforce. Not only will this new collaboration enhance the value of the training solutions we provide, but, as identified by the America Makes Workforce and Education Roadmap, it’s exactly the type of effort the industry is requesting.”

Click2Cast 2018 Preview at EUROGUSS

Click2Cast 2018 includes powerful new geometry tools for an easy creation of runners, risers, sleeves, chillers, and cooling lines within a single environment.

Next month in Germany at EUROGUSS, the International Trade Fair for Die Casting, Altair Engineering, Inc. and solidThinking will present a preview of Click2Cast 2018, and its new geometry avatar, for the first time. The casting process software has added new editing capabilities, as well as powerful geometry tools for creating chillers, cooling lines, risers, runners, and sleeves, and users will be able to optimize the whole casting process by using all of the tools in one single environment for the first time, which benefits the supply chain.

“Click2Cast has seen great adoption across the globe for being fast, easy, accurate and affordable, and as such, a fine balance between usability and function had to be attained in the development of the new release. We are excited that we have not compromised on any front, despite adding powerful capabilities. Our philosophy of bringing high-end simulation tools to the early stage of the design process with our solidThinking Inspire framework has had tremendous impact in the design community,” said Ravi Kunju, Vice President of Manufacturing Solutions at Altair. “Now we are doing exactly the same with casting simulation, by packaging it in the same framework as Inspire. Our development team has worked extremely hard and done a phenomenal job with both, our solvers and the tool’s interface and we are confident that users will love the experience even more now. We cannot wait to show it at EUROGUSS in January.”

The official release of Click2Cast 2018 will happen in March of 2018, though visitors to the solidThinking EUROGUSS booth #149 in hall 6 can sign up for a free trial.

Students Build Suspended Bamboo Pavilion with 3D Printed Joints

Students at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem have built a suspended bamboo pavilion, which is held together by ropes and 3D printed joints, for a project. The pavilion is actually a proposal about real-scale construction, and resulted from a Design-Build summer studio focused on the experimentation and building with materials as one of the driving forces behind architectural design.

The suspended pavilion is 40 square meters, and thanks to its 3D printed joints, can be re-used and built again with different configurations. It’s currently located in the entrance courtyard to the academy’s Architecture department, inviting visitors to engage with the hanging bamboo, which is supposed to challenge the perception of ‘outside’ versus ‘inside.’

3D Printed Skeleton Helps Man Deal with Cancer Diagnosis

Receiving a cancer diagnosis is a shock, and everyone deals with that a little differently. When Paul Curry, a London-based editorial developer for BuzzFeed, found out that the odd-looking patch of skin on his lower back that he’d always thought was eczema or psoriasis was actually the result of a rare blood cancer called mycosis fungoides (MF), he turned to 3D printing to help him cope, and detailed the process in an amusing and frank BuzzFeed post. Curry had a full-body PET/CT scan, and while he sadly did not receive superpowers from being injected with radioactive tracer, he was allowed to keep the medical imaging data.

“I loaded up the CD, transformed the DICOM data into a 3D model of my body, then extracted the skeleton from it by targeting the material density of bone. Of course, I 3D-printed three copies of my skeleton out, at 10% scale,” Curry explained. “Reactions to this have been mixed. My counsellor thinks it’s g******** creepy. I think it’s totally rad. My radiologist was super impressed. It’s even been noted in my medical record that I’ve done this, which is the closest thing to a school ‘permanent record’ that you get as an adult, so I’m quite proud of that.”

Curry called the project a “good distraction” for coping with his diagnosis.

Purchase a 3D Printed Ornament Sale to Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy

Muscular dystrophy, a degenerative muscle-destroying disorder, affects one in every 625 men, women, and children in Australia, slowly taking away their mobility and quality of life. This Christmas, Muscular Dystrophy Australia (MDA) is teaming up with Monash University and several kids affected by the disorder to make and sell 3D printed Christmas tree ornaments called Little Miracles and donating all of the proceeds toward research to help find a cure. There are 14 available ornaments, each originally handmade and designed by a child with muscular dystrophy, before being 3D printed by design students and engineers at Monash.

Each Little Miracles ornament is available for purchase for just $35 off the MDA website. If you click on the individual ornaments, you can learn a little information about the child who created it, like 6-year-old Ryan who designed two 3D printable Christmas tree ornaments and enjoys jumping on the trampoline with his brother, or 12-year-old Louise, who turned a picture she drew of herself and her dog Timmy getting ready to open their Christmas presents into an ornament.

Discuss these stories and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts below. 

 

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