Comments on: Army Corps of Engineers using 3D printers to create dam models

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 01:43:25 +0000

The printer uses a type of plastic, but the dam is built with concrete and steel rebar. I think to build anything of this scale out of “printable material”, you would need something as strong as carbon nano-fiber. Unfortunately, that is also very expensive. I speculate that someday that may be cheap enough to be feasible if Kurzweil is correct about his overall singularity theory.

By: WLGJR

WLGJR — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 14:09:41 +0000

How come some comments get posted immediately and some require “approval”?
I fail to see a pattern. Do you use some kind of complex algorithm, dear editors?

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 10:18:47 +0000

You have clearly not been paying attention. Just off the top of my head, they’ve been printing ciruit boards, robots, laboratory hardware, aircraft and weapons.

By: WLGJR

WLGJR — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 22:32:11 +0000

You can achieve that, either printing out individual parts (or at least print out the ibeams and other skeletal structures) or perhaps you need very versatile robots that moves into the correct position and print out (using the attached 3D printers) the corresponding parts.

By: Gorden Russell

Gorden Russell — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 19:38:56 +0000

Thanks, Publius.

By: Greg

Greg — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 19:35:21 +0000

I want to know when they’ll be able to print the whole dam thing in situ.

By: MoonShyChangeling

MoonShyChangeling — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 18:03:40 +0000

i’m glad someone is finally using 3d printers to do something useful like this. it seems like they have been used mostly to make little toys.

By: jay

jay — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 17:49:16 +0000

I imagine portable industrial 3d printers on site building the actual structure in real time. So much for job enabling.

By: Publius

Publius — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:47:46 +0000

No, 3D printable circuit boards and motors and such are in the works.

By: Gorden Russell

Gorden Russell — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 13:58:37 +0000

Now after this, go back and read that article from yesterday again, “First 3D ghost images from a single pixel.”

With the ghost imaging device coupled to Google’s new laser glasses, the engineer could go to the building site and scan the banks of the river and phone in the measurements. The spillway will start printing before the engineer gets back to the office.

But on the downside, I was saddened to hear how many hours it took to print out each piece. A lot more development is going to be needed before you can print out a robot in a day. Also, it looks like the motors and computer wafers will have to be trucked in.