MANUFACTURING revolves around components. These come in all shapes and sizes, but some are starting to look surprisingly different—elegant, even. That transformation is graphically illustrated by the three widgets pictured below. They all perform the same job, but the two on the right have been re-designed by a combination of software and 3D printing.

The component on the left, which is about a metre (39 inches) tall, was designed as one of 1,600 parts to hold the support cables and arms for a giant outdoor lighting system. It is made from stainless steel in the traditional manner by cutting and drilling sections, which are then welded together. The work was done largely by hand—and was something of a chore because each of 1,200 of the brackets had to be different.

The other two components have been analysed by a computer to find the optimal design that is able to provide the same strength, but from the least amount of material. The middle component was optimised to keep the fixing points for the arms and cables in much the same place, and resulted in a 40% weight saving. Moreover, it could be printed in one go and design variations automatically handled by the software. The third version was obtained by allowing the system to completely rejig the entire structure. It produced a 75% weight saving.

The work was carried out by the Amsterdam office of Arup, a global firm of consulting engineers, as a research project. Optimisation software typically comes up with natural-looking shapes that seem to mimic nature—which is not surprising as nature has had a few million years’ head start designing structures like bones, stems and leaves. Salomé Galjaard, the team leader at Arup, thinks optimised 3D-printed components could be widely used in civil engineering to save weight and materials, provided contractors and standards authorities accept them.

That seems to be happening. Stratasys, an American producer of 3D printers, said recently that one of its machines had been used by Airbus to make more than 1,000 parts, typically for interior use, for the first A350 XWB airliner. Stratasys said the parts, printed in a resin-type material, had met aerospace certification standards and, besides being lighter, helped Airbus meet its delivery commitments. GE says only 3D printing will be able to make the fuel nozzles for its next generation of jet engines. And instead of being constructed from 18 individual parts, they will be printed as single items. Besides providing enhanced performance, the nozzles will be 25% lighter and should last five times longer.