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Category: 3D printing

3D printed bridge in Spain. Could this some day be our answer to reducing costs around US state and county infrastructure costs related to bridges and other structural repairs related to infrastructure?

The pedestrian crossing 3D-printed bridge installed in the urban park of Castilla La Mancha in Madrid, Spain, back in December is now ready to be used.

The 39-foot-long bridge was printed in micro-reinforced concrete at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia.

In addition to the 3D printing, the production process was also environmentally friendly allowing the team to optimize the distribution of materials, minimize the amount of water, and recycle the raw material during manufacture.

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Nice.

Testing treatments for bone cancer tumors may get easier with new enhancements to sophisticated support structures that mimic their biological environment, according to Rice University scientists.

A team led by Rice bioengineer Antonios Mikos has enhanced its three-dimensional printed scaffold to see how Ewing’s sarcoma (bone cancer) cells respond to stimuli, especially shear stress, the force experienced by tumors as viscous fluid such as blood flows through bone. The researchers determined the structure of a scaffold, natural or not, has a very real effect on how cells express signaling proteins that help cancer grow.

Sarcoma Cells on a scaffold

Sarcoma (bone cancer) cells proliferate on the surface of a 3D printed scaffold created at Rice University. Experiments at Rice showed that the size of pores in the scaffold, which mimics the extracellular matrix in bone, and the pores’ orientation make a difference in how cells proliferate in the presence of a flowing fluid, like blood. (Image: Mikos Research Group/Rice University)

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Wonder which 3D printer she used?

Together with scientists, fashion designers have used graphene — a Nobel-Prize winning material that’s tougher than diamonds — to give their LBD a high-tech cut.

“We are trying to showcase the amazing properties of graphene,” Francesca Rosella, the co-founder of fashion company CuteCircuit, told CNN.

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Highly sophisticated robotics and ‘bio-printing’ are rapidly changing the face of modern surgery, significantly eliminating the risk of human error and in some cases even allowing doctors to perform procedures remotely, according to experts at Arab Health.

Dr Peter C.W. Kim, vice-president and associate surgeon-in-chief of the Joseph E. Roberts Jr. Centre for Surgical Care at Washington DC’s Children’s National — which has received millions of dollars in donations from the UAE’s government — noted that doctors will soon be able to 3D-print using bio-tissue, such as for an eardrum.

“What our engineers and researchers have done is not only design the plastic with it, but also graft cells onto it,” he said. “This is where we are going. You will (in the future) be able to have organs on the shelf. Instead of harvesting it, you can print it.”

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Nice.

Submarine manufacturer saves major time and cost by 3D Printing a titanium Variable Ballast tank with EBM technology from Sciaky.

The production of an Arctic Explorer submarine was nearly scuppered after the supplier of a component went out of business. To find a solution, however, International Submarine Engineering (ISE) didn’t have to dive too deep. They turned instead to additive manufacturing.

ISE had originally planned to produce the titanium Variable Ballast (VB) tank with traditional manufacturing methods. Their key supplier was an overseas titanium forging facility that previously produced propellant tanks for the Russian space program. But then the supplier went bankrupt.

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Experts at the University of Oslo, Norway have discovered a new way for robots to design, evolve and manufacture themselves, without input from humans, using a form of artificial evolution called “Generative design,” and 3D printers – although admittedly the team, for now at least, still has to assemble the final product, robot, when it’s printed.

Generative design is something we’ve talked about several times before and it’s where artificial intelligence programs – creative machines, if you will – not humans, innovate new products – such as chairs and even Under Armour’s new Architech sneakers.

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In Brief 3D printing is making waves in the fashion industry. At the recent New York Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2017, threeASFOUR paraded ‘Oscillation,’ a dazzling 3D printed dress that could very well be the clothing of tomorrow.

Avant-garde fashion collective, threeASFOUR, flaunted their new 3D printed dress at the New York Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2017.

The eye-catching plastic dress, named Oscillation, is the highlight of threeASFOUR’s Quantum Vibrations collection. “We got very interested in the geometric shapes which lie beneath vibration,” says designer Gabi Asfour. “We spent a long time researching them and discovered that there are very specific formations that happen under certain frequencies. These formations reminded us of prints and other designs, a bit like tribal tattoos.”

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In Brief

  • Czech scientists have developed a 3D printed model of a functioning lung that can simulate real-life conditions like asthma and other chronic breathing problems.
  • Their model could lead to new treatment options for those suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, which claim more than 3 million lives every year.

3D printing is opening so many new doors in the medical field. The technology allows researchers and doctors to manipulate the finest design nuances of models as well as the properties of the materials used to build them. These 3D printed models of organs, bones, and other organic subjects are valuable tools for both students learning the basics and medical experts testing new treatments and conducting experimental research.

Now, Czech scientists from the Brno University of Technology have developed a 3D printed model of a functioning lung that can simulate real-life conditions like asthma and other chronic breathing problems. They believe that their 3D printed mechanical model and its computer-based counterpart can be used to devise new, more precise treatment methods. It would be particularly useful in creating a reference standard for inhaled drugs. “This model will show whether an inhaled drug will settle in the concrete areas where we need it to,” Miroslav Jicha, the head of the research team, told Reuters.

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