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A couple of months ago, a piece of news appeared on the network about the Israeli company Micron3DP, which learned how to print glass products. Although her unique technology is still at the development stage, she was the first company to try to tame this fragile and noble material.
And now we want to talk about the company Mediated Matter, which was founded and works under the leadership of Professor Neri Oxman, who has already managed to make a name for herself in the world of 3D printing. She teamed up with the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Wiss Institute, and the Glass Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop a method for manufacturing elegant and perfectly even glass products using a 3D printer.
Within the framework of the G3DP project, the combined team of scientists and designers used the most modern technologies known today, as well as traditional tools for the manufacture and processing of glass, which were invented many years ago to create intricate and incredibly beautiful glass shapes and designs.
The principle of operation of a 3D printer is very simple. Its upper part is a small furnace in which glass is laid. The temperature in the furnace reaches 1038 ° C, this is quite enough to melt the glass. At the bottom of the printer is an aluminum-quartz-silicon nozzle, the principle of which is similar to the print head of a desktop FDM 3D printer. The molten glass flows out of the furnace through a nozzle and is extruded onto the platform, where it slowly cools and hardens. To stop the flow of glass, just lower the temperature in the nozzle using compressed air.
The design of the printer is made of aluminum and steel pipes (in the proportion of 80/20). The printer has three independent stepper motors, a ball screw, and Arduino drivers. The motion system is very similar to a 3D printer system with a Cartesian coordinate system.
In the samples presented by the researchers, the height of each layer is about 4.5 mm and the width is about 7.95 mm. It is worth noting the accuracy of positioning: the degree of deviation of the fiber from the center line is 0.18 mm ± 0.13 mm (about 2.25% of the total wall thickness). The maximum degree of deviation was 0.42 mm. Thus, in the manufacture of glass objects by this method, we can speak of an error of 0.5 mm.
Given the incredible accuracy and accuracy of printing, it is obvious that a ton of different applications can be found for this printer. As researchers continue to work on the G3DP project, it should soon attract the attention of many manufacturers.
