3D printing is a modern technology in the field of production. In this field lot of development is still going on.



It is being considered as the next revolution in the field of manufacturing science. This technology has the capability of producing highly complex shapes or almost any shape.



In this, digital equipment is used. The three dimensional product is produced with the help computer or electronic file, basically a CAD file.



In this the computer is used but it is not like ordinary CNC. Instead, it is much more than that. Additive manufacturing is used for making the part by this method.



ADDITIVE manufacturing is refers to the process of making the part with successive layers of material i.e. one by one layer of material will be placed by a tool.



As the system is computer controlled, so when the object is created after all the layers will be placed, it will stop the process by itself.





Overall WORKING PROCESS Of 3D printing

In the process of making an object by 3-d printing. First we need a 3D design in the computer i.e. virtual CAD file. So the required CAD file would be developed.





The computer will be attached to the 3D printing system which will have the equipment off additive manufacturing. This additive manufacturing system will have the material to be used in the process. The material can be molten metal or any other material as per the requirement.





Then the command is given to the additive manufacturing system by the computer system and it will start to place successive layers of the material. After placing all the layers the desired 3d object will be produced.

PREPARATION OF 3D CAD DESIGN:-

In the above process a 3D CAD design plays a vital role. There are two methods of designing a 3D object.

3D Modeling

3D Scanning

3-D MODELING:-

In this method, for obtaining a CAD design of a 3D object, a 3D modeling software is used. The required model is prepared in the cad software like tinkecad, blender etc.



after developing the design model of object virtually, it will be separated in no. of layers. The no, of layers can be hundreds or thousands. Then the command is given to the additive manufacturing system.

3-D SCANNING:- this method is about is about scanning an object 3 dimensionally. This means a 3d object is scanned by a 3D scanner and a cad file is obtained.



This method is less reliable because there are some chances of error. So the 3D modeling method is preferred.

CONVERSION OF 3D MODEL IN A PRINTABLE FORM:-

After getting a digital modelling file we need a printable format of that file. Or better e say it a 3D printable format.



For this purpose the 3D digital model of the object is divided into number of parts. This process of dividing the object is called slicing.



In slicing the model is divided into hundreds or thousands of parts. This is done to give the command to the system about placing a material in one stroke by additive manufacturing system .



According to this slicing the tool of the additive manufacturing system will place the horizontal layers of martial one by one.

APPLICATION:-

The range of application of this technology is very enormous. It can be implemented in almost all the fields of production in which some of them is given blow as examples-