Additive Manufacturing & Standards

Additive manufacturing is at the forefront of the new industrial revolution. The additive manufacturing industry is constantly evolving to produce a stronger, consistent part. 3D printing is much older than people realize--some of the first experiments using additive date back to 1981. Japanese Doctor Hideo Kodama of Nagoya Municipal Industrial Research Institute was one of the first to invent a single-beam laser curing approach. Perhaps better known, in the US it was Chuck Hall in 1984. Both systems use a UV light to strike a vat of photopolymer material and where the material is struck, it hardens. When the layer is completed, the platform moves down, more material covers the geometry, and the process repeats until the geometry is complete. Binder jetting was the original '3D printing' system developed at MIT. Materials for this process can vary from the original corn starch to metal to sand to even ceramics.