3D-drucken - Eine zukunftstechnologie?

Due to the fast developments in production technology, an increased flexibility, the need for innovation and highly customised products are factors of ever-growing importance. Hence, the manufacturing technology has to react to these challenges. The biggest advantage of rapid prototyping techniques is the possibility to produce complex geometrical structures directly from 3D-CAD data. One of these technologies is the 3D-printing process, which is based on printing a liquid into a powder bed. The special challenge, which has to be met, is not to manufacture innovative, customised products in the shortest time possible, but to increase product quality und to integrate functionality. A fundamental improvement of product quality can be achieved by activated polymerisation. Furthermore future devices should obtain transparent and elastic parts as well as conductive paths. A flexible test rig for experiments was developed and is currently available for further experimentation.