Glass has a longstanding reputation as a sustainable material. Even though it originates from sand (a finite resource), glass can be recycled repeatably with little to no detrimental effect, and without requiring the introduction of new, virgin material within the batch. But working with glass is tricky; glassblowing requires an artisan’s skill, and higher volume glass production demands costly tooling.
Maple Glass Printing is working to solve these problems with glass manufacturing, while simultaneously providing new avenues for recycling this material. The Australian startup tackled the production challenge first, building a prototype printer from a repurposed kiln and spare parts. But now the company is launching its commercial glass 3D printers along with another innovation: a machine dedicated to recycling glass scraps into new “filament” called glass cane. A manufacturer implementing both machines could effectively create its own circular economy for this material, much like Maple Glass Printing has done for itself.
But there’s more to come from this startup. Read today’s story to learn how glass 3D printing works, and how this technology can be combined with other additive and conventional manufacturing methods to literally change the shape of glass’s future.
Innovators like Will Drewery from Diagon come to IMTS to connect, find inspiration and new ideas, and discover solutions. Join him and other innovators at IMTS 2024 to move the world forward.
Researchers were able to produce a 3D printed metal with different microstructures that create stronger and weaker regions in exact locations in the metal. The team also found that 3D printed metals with both strong and weak regions were slightly stronger than metals with only strong regions. Read more.
Strain gages. Fabrisonic has created a “smart” build plate that incorporates these sensors to detect the strain vectors throughout a laser powder bed fusion build.
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NFC chips. These chips can be easily dropped into extrusion-style prints to create items such as digital business cards. (H/T Andrew Sink on X)
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Motion monitors for casting cores. Researchers from the University of Northern Iowa and Youngstown State University placed Bluetooth sensors inside of 3D printed sand cores for casting to track acceleration and rotation, showing that core shifts can be measured in real time.
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Cooling lines. The 3D printed concrete EmPower Wall developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory features water cooling lines placed during the print. In use, the water lines can regulate the temperature of the adjacent room.
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Bonus: Looking for other ideas of what you might embed in your own prints? Matt Stultz on X offers this tip: Search Thingiverse or a similar site for the keyword “Pause” to turn up designs that call for pausing the build at a certain point, which will typically be used to add something to the print.
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