ABSTRACT
Oak Ridge National Laboratory's focus on printing is led by the Deposition Science & Technology Group within the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility. The DST is young, created in 2013. According to group leader Chad Duty, it works with a variety of advanced manufacturing technologies such as carbon fiber, magnetic field processing, and printed electronics. Boeing uses 3D printing—also called additive manufacturing (AM)—to produce more than 20,000 military aircraft parts, and General Electric Aviation has announced that it will produce more than 100,000 additive-manufactured components for its LEAP and GE9X jet engines by 2020. The story illustrates both the potential of AM and the challenge it presents to existing ideas of what manufacturing involves. Quality control is also an issue, one that is especially important in areas such as medical implants or aerospace manufacturing. The component gets very hot at this point of melting, but surrounding areas may stay cool, depending on the technology.
