3D Printing in Suspended Gravity

Everyone knows that 3D-printing has it's limitations. First, it's REALLY slow, and also there's problems with the platform that you're using, it's costly to increase the size of it, since you already paid for your current size. But, the popularization of the 3D printing is increasing day by day. Before everyone could buy a 3D printer, a new printing method developed by MIT Self-Assembly Lab and Steelcase has the potential to change the way we think about design, and it might come to the market fast.

CREDITS: Self-Assembly Lab, MIT / Christophe Guberan / Steelcase

Created by MIT's Self-Assembly Lab in collaboration with Steelcase, the so called Rapid liquid printing is a method that is fast, designed to tackle large-scale production, and doesn't rely on prototype materials. Rapid liquid printing physically draws in 3D space in a liquid gel suspension and allows the precise creation of customised items. While 3D printing calls for layer-by-layer creation, Rapid liquid printing works through a injection into the gel, physically drawing the objects. It's an impressive thing to watch, for sure. Particularly because of the complex curvature of the designs. Also, there are no limits to scale. With a large enough tank, the process can create objects of any size(yep, just like Westworld).

It takes an hour to mix the gel, and after that, it begins immediately to suspend the printed materials. If the printed material is cosmically dense, the gel may need to be altered in terms of composition, but Tibbits says that, generally, density isn't a problem. "We have been able to suspend plastics, foams, rubbers and even metals without any issue."


The creative ability of Rapid liquid printing had it's exhibition at Milan's Furniture Fair with product designer Christophe Guberan, in which the team printed a table top for Bassline. The Bassline table is the largest object the team has created so far and was printed in a metre-long tank.

CREDITS: Self-Assembly Lab, MIT / Christophe Guberan / Steelcase

Rapid liquid printing is still in the research phase, but the creators forecast that it can enter the mass production stage, and that would be something. As some of you may know, there are already 3D-printed concrete houses in the Netherlands, now, think about what the Rapid liquid method can do. 

Watch the video from Seeker, a cientific Youtube Channel:

Source: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/rapid-liquid-printing-mit-steelcase