Unless you have been living under a
rock for the past few years, you have at least heard the term 3D printing by
now. 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the process of adding thin layers
of a specific material on top of each other to “print” a product. Each layer is fused together until the
finished product is created. This is an alternative
to the traditional method of subtractive manufacturing where you would remove
material to form a final product. Current 3D printers can print objects out of
wood, plastic, and now metal. Historically these systems have been used for
rapid prototyping but are now making their way into the realm of manufacturing.
We are now seeing 3D printers which are actually manufacturing high-end finished
components. One of the most impressive products currently in 3D production is jet fuel
nozzles. General Electric’s aerospace division has been printing high quality metal fuel nozzles for some time now. The program has been successful enough to warrant a
substantial investment and expansion of the program.
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| GE's LEAP engine will use 3D printed fuel nozzles. |
3D printing on a small scale is
fantastic for a several applications. Rapid prototyping using 3D printers
allows designers and manufacturers to test a variety of design configurations
in real time. Modifying and testing prototypes much faster and more efficiently
than ever opens the door to superior products that can be brought to market
much faster. In the realm of Natural Gas
Vehicles (NGVs), this technique will be applied to compressors. Gas compressors are single most expensive
component of a Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) fueling station. Rapid prototyping will allow compressor
manufacturers like IMW, Ariel and GE to develop new, more efficient, and more
affordable compressors. 3D printing will also enable the entire fueling station
to be serviced much more reliably and cost-effectively. Today, if a compressor component
fails, a technician is dispatched to repair the faulty part. Typically service providers like Clean Energy
who maintain these systems, must stock a huge inventory of critical parts. In the near future, 3D manufacturing will take the
place of large parts inventories and allow technicians to simply print the part
they need on-demand vs. stocking the component in a warehouse. Taking this concept further, we may very
well have fueling stations that one day print their own replacement parts
on-site when they sense a failure is eminent. A station technician can be dispatched and coordinated to arrive when
the part is complete; he can then perform the repair without ever needing to visit
a warehouse to locate the part. The current barrier to this solution is printing times, which are still very long. But be assured the printing industry is well aware of this and production times are improving at a rapid pace.
And that is just the beginning. 3D
printers are often thought of as being limited by their size. You can only print an object small enough to
fit inside the printer itself. Well…not for long. The next evolution of 3D printing is already
underway, and it involves scaling up 3D printers by combining the printers with
robots. Researchers at the University of Southern California are developing a robotic 3D printing system that can print an entire house in 24 hours.
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| The Future of Construction: 3D Printing |
A system of rails would be installed
around the job site allowing the printer to move in three dimensions (3D x 2). Using
concrete printers these robots would print a house from the ground
up. This technology will revolutionize
every aspect of the construction industry. In the NGV world, this means fueling
stations that once took months to build, could now be assembled and operational
in just days. While it is extremely unlikely an entire compressor would ever be printed on
site, there are still several benefits to such an approach. The robotic
printers would prepare the entire fueling station site in a short period of
time, printing the concrete pad, high pressure piping and the electrical systems.
For stations with time fill systems where each vehicle has a dedicated fueling hose, the entire time fill system consisting of
concrete K-rail, gas lines and plastic-metal hosing is an ideal candidate for
robotic printing.
Once the site is prepared, the
core equipment components would be installed.
While real world advances such as this will be implementing incrementally,
the end result will be fueling stations that are built in far less time. This will
improve costs by reducing construction time and labor, simplifying permitting, and
even reducing insurance costs.
For one last wow factor, I will share with
you the ultimate domain of 3D printing: outer space. Doing anything in space is incredibly expensive,
especially construction projects. For this reason you will see some of the most
incredible advances in 3D printing occur in space, where the lack of gravity, abundance
of raw material and free solar energy create the foundation for technologies
that sound like science fiction, but are quite real. SpiderFab is developing 3D printing robots that will be utilized for space-construction projects. These are the enabling
technologies that companies like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries
will need to return their Asteroid payloads back to Earth for refining and sale…setting
the stage for the Trillion dollar commercial space economy. #FuelSpace.