4D Printing: DfAM with dynamic performance

The most exciting thing about SLS is that it is a 3D printing technology with robust and purposeful materials that also possess dynamic properties.

This means that SLS offers the potential for Design for Additive Manufacture (DfAM) to produce not only static shapes but shapes that have performance and transform.  This powerful characteristic can be applied to your additive manufacturing to either maximise productivity and thus increase value or to produce parts that possess functional behaviour.

This type of designing is sometimes referred to as 4D printing, which although headline grabbing, only serves to mystify this type of designing with AM.  In reality, this is simply DfAM with an understanding of the dynamic material properties of SLS in order to make objects perform.   See  some  of  these  types  of  part  on  the  SLS  Part  Video  page.

An exciting prospect for the dynamic performance of SLS is EOS’s forthcoming “Fine  Detail  Resolution” technology, which will allow finer, smaller objects to display these properties.  This potential is also discussed further in my blogs.