Cloud Manufacturing with Generative Design and 3D Printing
Generative design continues to maximizes the performance and efficiency of structures while reducing cost of manufacture. Remanufacturing and recycling initiatives struggle to deal with impurities.
Assembly Line
Calculating the best shapes for things to come
Date: January 25, 2022
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Maximizing the performance and efficiency of structures—everything from bridges to computer components—can be achieved by design with a new algorithm developed by researchers at the University of Michigan and Northeastern University. It’s an advancement likely to benefit a host of industries where costly and time-consuming trial-and-error testing is necessary to determine the optimal design. As an example, look at the current U.S. infrastructure challenge—a looming $2.5 trillion backlog that will need to be addressed with taxpayer dollars.
Read more at University of Michigan News
Generative Design for Milling Lightweights EV Motorbike Part
Date: January 24, 2022
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Generative design software uses a set of user-input parameters and constraints to develop efficient part designs. These shapes are often organic forms no human would design on their own, and in its earliest years generative design was locked to additive manufacturing and production methods facilitated by additive manufacturing. Not long after Lightning and Autodesk developed their first iteration of the generatively designed motorcycle swing arm, Autodesk updated its solver to support milling and other conventional manufacturing methods. Design candidates generated for milling generally cannot reach the same level of optimization as their AM siblings, but they are much easier to manufacture while still reducing the weight of the part.
Read more at Modern Machine Shop
3D Printing Drives Growth In On-Demand Manufacturing
Date: January 27, 2022
Author: Carolyn Schwaar
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This new breed of on-demand digital manufacturing company is highly invested in software and digitally driven manufacturing technologies, such as industrial 3D printing. They not only promise faster and more efficient part manufacturing locally, but digital solutions that enable cost-saving product innovations and accelerated time to market for nearly any type of product.
The company’s newest microfactory on Chicago’s Goose Island features industrial 3D printers from Carbon and HP along side digitally integrated CNC machines, as part of Fast Radius’ Cloud Manufacturing Platform. The microfactory will produce component parts for companies across industries including electric vehicles, medical and healthcare devices, and consumer goods. The World Economic Forum named Fast Radius one of nine best factories in the world implementing “technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution” or Industry 4.0.
Read more at Forbes
Ocado showcases 3D printing innovation
Date: January 27, 2022
Author: Cliff Saran
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Ocado has unveiled a new approach to building the robots in its fulfilment centres, which it hopes will dramatically improve efficiency and reduce operating costs. The company has developed a 600 Series bot, which it said can be built cheaper and is lighter than the current 500 Series bot. According to Steiner, the 600 Series grocery fulfilment bot “changes everything”. Ocado designed the 600 Series using topology optimisation, similar to the technique used in the aerospace sector to make aircraft parts strong but light. It then used additive manufacturing, in partnership with HP, to make 3D prints of the parts required to build the 600 Series.
Read more at Computer Weekly
ABB’s Paper Mill Technology Helps Renewcell Turn Old Clothes Into New Fabrics
Date: January 28, 2022
Author: Jim Vinoski
Vertical: Pulp and Paper, Textiles
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In recent years, the pulp and paper industry has gone from having a reputation of being dirty and environmentally unfriendly to being a leader in sustainability and pollution control. Now the technologies that enabled that transition are being used to help the textile industry too. And the players involved are restarting a shuttered paper mill in Sweden to make it happen, once more providing good-paying jobs for the area.
Renewcell is the Sweden-based scaleup at the center of it all. The company developed a sustainable process that recycles waste textiles into a product called Circulose, whose name is the tip-off that it’s aimed at making fashion circular.
Read more at Forbes
Detecting Corrosion and Erosion in Horizontal Boiler Tube Assemblies
Date: January 27, 2022
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Boilers play an essential role in improving the efficiency of thermal power generation. Three boiler sections, economizer, superheater, and reheater, are tightly bundled tube assemblies inherent to the process by maintaining high temperature feedwater and steam that drives the steam turbine and generator. Tube assemblies can be vertical or horizontal, but the focus of this article are assemblies in the horizontal configuration. Because of the curved design, depth of tubing, location, and contents they are subject to a variety of corrosion and erosion mechanisms that can result in failure and unplanned outages.
The susceptibility for failure in a tube assembly is further exacerbated by inadequate inspection methods for detecting or predicting corrosion and erosion damage. However, specialized robot-based NDT techniques, such as Rapid Ultrasonic Gridding (RUG), offer unparalleled coverage and data compared to traditional methods, giving owner/operators the confidence that their equipment can operate optimally.
Read more at Gecko Robotics Blog
Surge Demand
The roots of machine learning go back to Claude Shannon. Africa is industrializing starting with autos. Hyundai Engineering is raising money to go green.