Lattice Improves Strength Of 3D Structure
3D printing, another great facet of the technological advances in the world which I think Africa must jump to embrace. Researchers have been earnest in their search for materials that will suite print for different purposes; from construction to even food preparations. As part of these advances is the recent development by Researchers at ETH Zurich who have developed a three dimensional lattice structure which can absorb vibrations and also act as load bearing parts.
Key in this development was Chiara Daraio, a professor of mechanics and materials who worked with other researchers to make the lattice structure with a lattice spacing of 3.5mm from plastic using a 3D printer. They also included steel cubes to serve as resonators in the lattice.
How does it work? The vibrations along the structures that are made from the lattice absorb the vibrations and which then travel through the whole lattice and are then trapped by the resonators and the plastic trusses. This was explain by Kathryn Matlack. Although other materials for absorbing vibrations exist which are used in machines and cars, the ability of the 3D lattice to serve as load-bearing component makes it unique. In addition, lattice structure can absorb a wide range of vibrations, especially at suppressing slow vibrations. Moreover, the material can be designed to hold and absorb undesirable engineering noise produced from very low vibrations which help improve the efficiency of machines.
Though the lattice can be made theoretically from metal instead of plastic, putting it to work would require some mix of lightweight material to fixed in the lattice geometry and large mass resonators embedded and well position ed to enable them nullify maximum vibrations.
A major setback to the this innovation is the fact that current 3D printer technologies are designed for small scale productions though the 3D lattice vibrations absorbents innovation are ready to used in technical applications; for instance in constructing space rockets and car chassis. There is still hope for the revolution the comes with the advances into engineering of 3D printers for large scale productions.
I believe its high time Africa embrace the 3D printing technology and understand its benefits on the economy of the continent. The technology can help reduce the rate of importation of spare parts of simple equipment and even heavy machine example the spare parts of the vast fleet of airbus of South Africa. It also essential because of the current shift of major manufacturing industries to the printing some parts of machines like cars and air planes and even drones. With more steps and researches into materials and design like the above lattice innovation, which focuses on improving the performance of 3D structures the journey to the future will be shorter. I cannot wait to design the looks of my food and 3D print it. What do you think?
Austin-Morgan, T. (2016, August 1). 3D-printed lattice structure absorbs vibrations and provides support. p. 1.
