4 ms·

I am not the author of the article, just the submitter. However, I'll run with your comment anyway... Tensile Modulus (aka Young's Modulus) is a measure of ho

I am not the author of the article, just the submitter. However, I'll run with your comment anyway... Tensile Modulus (aka Young's Modulus) is a measure of how stiff a material is. Specifically, it's a measure of how much a material stretches under load. (Diamond has a very high tensile modulus while rubber has a very low tensile modulus.) Ten years ago, people were 3D printing in plastics with a tensile modulus of under 1,000 MPa and they were happy with that. Today you can print in DSM Somos NanoTool which has a tensile modulus of 11,400 MPa. Keep in mind this is a plastic. ( Source: http://www.dsm.com/en_US/downloads/dsms/NanoTooleng_10.09.pdf http://www.dsm.com/en_US/downloads/dsms/NanoTooleng_10.09.pd... ) If you need even stronger materials then you should consider using an SLS (selective laser sintering) printer that can build products in titanium, aluminum or steel. Imagine how many ants could safely walk across a bridge 3D printed in any of these!

oelewapperke 15y ago
Well I have two comments to this: 1) there's still very serious limits to what even extremely expensive 3d printers can achieve. Printing a part for a vacuum cleaner that lasts, say, a year ... not in the cards even for expensive devices. (I do agree at some point they may improve to the point of being useful for something other than super mario figurines, but we're talking in 10 years maybe) 2) while this may bring manufacturing back to America, it will actually destroy manufacturing jobs in America, and transport jobs.