Denis Santachiara It is closed on September 25, in Düsseldorf, the fifth edition of Euromold , the world fair machinery and the manufacture of molds and tools for industrial production. Back from this interesting experience as Cyrcus (platform that offers design copyright produced in digital fabrication), I decided to bring my point of view on the latest international and technological innovations, just under the digital fabrication. Euromold, as the name implies, had left years ago as fair for the technologies and the materials used to build molds. E ‘has always been dedicated to the contractors in the industrial sector, both as producers and users of CNC machines CNC (machines working for removal of metals) and the chain connected (accessory manufacturers, servo-mechanisms, injection molds). The advent of machines that print additional metals such as steel, titanium and aluminum, has led to the partial replacement of the CNC machining by subtraction. This innovation has opened the door to the growing market of 3D printers that we have seen in recent years, and is used in industry for the construction of molds and pre-series aluminum and resin.
TECHNOLOGICAL TRENDS
The coexistence between the additive and subtractive machines in recent years until this edition of Euromold last year, sold gradually gave way to machine market additive ( 3D printers). This technology was also recently announced (HBR) Harvard Business Review as a disruptive innovation that “is preparing to transform the industrial economy. Besides making it easy customization of products, its flexibility also eliminates assembly and stocks “. These are the foundations of what I call “open design” or the ease with which you can re-design the infinite products to improve the performance and intended use. The reasons of the rise of additive technology can be attributed to both the fast development of the same especially in the metals industry, and the development of computer programs that focus on these machines, such as improvements in the accuracy of the 3D scanning.
Since the penultimate event could already be felt a “chain of digital fabrication” and, from this edition, they have become dominant all content related to the techniques of digital fabrication that go well beyond the specific field of industrial molds. The digital supply chain is expanding to touch the small industry, multinational companies, machine manufacturers hyper-industrial and even professional offices and the domestic market. In fact reality as Stratasys and 3D Systems have proposed product lines affordable and very high technological performance. In parallel, the little Italian and foreign manufacturers offer machines with wire dimensions from 1.000 Euro for classroom use machines to print metal or resin with a high professional quality.
The impression is that large and small producers points to a market that exceeds the hobby on one side and big business on the other.
There are new in the resolution of problems related to the press. Currently the size of the printing table allow to produce small objects or joinable. It was presented a printer that reaches a cubic meter of print area. Another innovation has been proposed by BuildTak, a printer with two extruders which they can produce two different pieces at the same time.
THE MATERIALS
Is shaping a new market dedicated to specific materials for printing, whether polymers or metals. Materials such as nylon, and ABS resins, currently the most widely used, have been adapted to the techniques of molding. In addition, at an experimental level, but not yet arrived in the trade shows, the carbon (Kevlar), graphene materials and shape memory (such as products that, after a stress, returning to its original shape). It remains still in development the printing of the glass, only material not yet used.
The innovation that I found most interesting of all is a machine, proposed by 3D Systems, printing multiple materials and colors together and has a revolutionary feature: the materials can be molded together with the possibility to graduate the hardness and softness.
On the left control knob to cycle a white nylon wrapped in a soft black material printed together. In the sample below you you can see a part white as bone hard and the various labeled tabs, each of which has a different elasticity desired, but all printed together
Can I print such as a bicycle saddle in one piece, deciding in advance the points at which it will be softer or more rigid, and by precisely defining the degree of softness of each point. Imagine a saddle that is printed together with the soft coupling mechanism to the frame that is rigid printed.
In the next installment we will discuss the most interesting companies and their products.
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* Denis Santachiara, born in 1950 in Campagnola, in the province of Reggio Emilia, he began his career as a designer in 1980, attracted by the potential poetic language of the artificial world and new technologies and aesthetic processes that can arise in the industry.
He creates works on the border between art and design that are immediately exposed to the Venice Biennale, Documenta 8 in Kassel, the Milan Triennale and the Quadriennale in Rome, to name a few.
He has collaborated and still collaborates with Italian and foreign companies to design and research new products. Among the many remember Artemis, Baleri Italy, Bang-Olufsen, BPT, Camping, De Padua, Fiat, Foscarini, Mandarina Duck, Marutomy, Montedison, La Murrina, Nintendo, Panasonic, Rosenthal, Sector No Limits, SNIA Viscose, Superga, Swatch Vitra, ZERODISEGNO.
His works are on display at MoMA in New York, the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in the Louvre in Paris, the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, the Philadelphia Museum and the Vitra Museum in Berlin.
Today took over the project Cyrcus- direct design direct marketing , a platform of e-commerce and produces digital fabrication professional and offers direct sales of products in collaboration with renowned designers.
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