Political power grows out of the nozzle of a 3-D Printer.
Posted on 02/11/2014 5:31:21 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
I’ve never understood materials engineering. How do you choose from millions of possible materials and combinations? How can you even remotely begin to know a small portion of them and what their characteristics are?
Political power grows out of the nozzle of a 3-D Printer.
Print a really really small gun.
Can we call it “Rearden Metal”? Seriously, The next couple of decades could be amazing if the government doesn’t eat up all of the capital.
This stuff is going to change life as we know it. The future of materials science is just going to be amazing. We will soon have materials with properties that are just plain impossible today.
Most design is a matter of satisficing, rather than optimizing. You stop when the design is good enough. Of course, sometimes “good enough” and “best possible” are about the same (e.g. for space craft).
I remember a cable tray for the Shuttle that was hogged out of a 50 lb block of aluminum, down to about 4 lb, to avoid welds...
“This stuff is going to change life as we know it. The future of materials science is just going to be amazing. We will soon have materials with properties that are just plain impossible today.”
I think you are correct. I find it amazing what a 3D printer can do. The coming years are going to be fascinating.
I hope we can survive as a species long enough to enjoy some of these awesome technologies. I’m especially excited about the cellular printing research that promises made to order body parts that our body won’t reject.
I’ve long wondered that connection points are astoundingly strong for small size (consider an entire bridge sits on just a few square feet), could an entire structure be made of them? Nice answer to that question. Looking forward to the future.
I’m a machinist. Give me a chunk of metal and I’ll make anything you want.
Did you see this?
Jay Remembers the Three-Wheeled Car- ‘The Shotwell’-Jay Leno’s Garage
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3121912/posts
As an engineer with experience in such matters, pick the one that seems the best, build a prototype or scale model, beat on it until it breaks and analyze the failure mode.
Computer modeling, finite element analysis, etc can streamline the process somewhat, but is still susceptible to garbage in....garbage out.
IOW, with new materials, R and D means Run and Destroy. This is why such expenses should be tax deductible!
Water is pretty heavy.
A pint's a pound, the world around.
Triangular micro-truss structure about 30 millionths of a meter wide.
Just a bit bigger than a thousandth of an inch (a “mil” to old machinists).
As an engineer with experience in such matters, pick the one that seems the best, build a prototype or scale model, beat on it until it breaks and analyze the failure mode.
Sounds like you’ve been there too ;>)
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