As technologies improve and the software becomes more powerful, so do the opportunities for designers to create new and exciting products, services and systems.
IB Syllabus core
This is an excellent article from Dezeen illustrating the above and how 3D printing (Rapid Prototyping) has allowed engineers to create new creative structures economically in terms of both finance and time. Use of FEA systems when designing and developing building structures and components in CAD and the ability to 3D print will allow innovation in design to flourish.
The use of CAD and 3D printing allows for such a “perfect” structure to be manufactured for the first time.
A hand welded node takes time in order to design, calculate and manufacture using traditional methods.
The use of metal 3D-printed structural components will “have a big impact on the visual appearance of the world we live in,” Galjaard says in the movie, which was filmed in Eindhoven during Dutch Design Week 2014.
The use of additive manufacturing will allow engineers to produce bespoke components using much less material than traditional welding techniques.
“If these elements become lighter then all the other elements [in a building] can become lighter as well,” she explains. “It can result in different shapes of buildings. The technique will allow us to create new things, come up with new ideas.”
Galjaard’s own research at Arup has been looking into how 3D printing could be used to create the steel nodes to hold a tensegrity structure together.
She was working on an irregular tensegrity structure that would have required over 1,000 different variants of these components. The design didn’t actually get built, but if it had each node would have had to have been welded by hand.
Read Read more @ Dezeen
I like this because it shows how something fairly uninteresting was made into something more aesthetically pleasing. This also tells us that CADCAM is an important part of refining.
I actually met a chap this Saturday who works for Arup’s and knows this lady! We managed to educate him into something his own company was working on! This is a great article that shows everything from CAD, Rapid Prototyping (3D printing to laymen) and FEA. Amazing how tech can benefit us when used properly and creatively, not just 3D printing guns as the press would lead us to believe!
I liked the way the designers found a new way of creating a different type of node. Shows their determination of making this structure.
This article covers alot: CAD, FEA, 3D printing etc Shows the positives afforded to us by such Technologies.