Quick Summary
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has commercialized a number of large-format 3D printing technologies. Now, scientists are working on error mitigation in large parts. ORNL is using six thermal cameras...
Additional Context
Lead Researcher Kris Villez explained,
“There is a vast opportunity space to make these machines more intelligent and more responsive. In the end, we’d love this to work like baking bread: You set the oven temperature, put in your dough, and return when the timer goes off to see if it’s done. You don’t have to monitor the oven temperature in real time throughout the baking.”
Large-format polymer 3D printing has been important to the US for decades now. On the one hand, it can be used for formwork for construction. But it can also be used to make many boats very quickly and at much lower cost than is done now. In 2021, we said that,
“The U.S. is almighty on the sea, but automated construction of autonomous sea vehicles can negate American marine power. The U.S. has hundreds of billions t