简体中文
A wide range of products manufactured with 3D printing equipment.
China plans to invest in locally-invented 3D printing technologies to boost its
manufacturing power, according to a senior industrial official.
Su Bo, Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology, said the
country should establish plans and use tax incentives to speed up research and
development (R&D) and application of 3D printing technologies.
Unlike traditional printing techniques, 3D printing is a process of
making three dimensional solid objects from a digital printer which can be
created by laying down successive layers of materials. It is also known as
additional manufacturing.
Cutting, bending, pressing, moulding and assembling will no longer be
necessary in the manufacturing as a click of the printing button on a 3D printer
will automatically produce a solid product based on the pre-set three
dimensional data.
"It is a revolutionary manufacturing technique. Once put to large-scale
production, it will ease China's pressure on energy and resources," said Su at
an international forum on additional manufacturing technology, which closed in
Wuhan on Sunday.
David Bourell, a professor of the University of Texas at Austin, in the
United States, sees great potential in the application of additional
manufacturing in China.
Even if the smallest portion of consumer goods are produced through 3D
printing, the market volume will be tremendous, he said.
China is the world's biggest manufacturer. If the technology can be put
to broader use, the country's productivity and energy- and resource-use
efficiency will improve greatly, said Su Bo.
President Li Peigen with the Huazhong University of Science and
Technology said that China was almost on par with developed countries in R&D
and application of the leading technology.
The university's Fast Manufacturing Center has invented a 3D printer
which can produce the world's biggest product through additive manufacturing
technologies.
Based on the pre-set three-dimensional data, the printer can manufacture
a variety of products from complicated industrial components to cooking utensils
with metal, porcelain, plastics and sand powders, according to Cai Daosheng, a
researcher with the center.
Academician Lu Bingheng with the Xi'an Jiaotong University took the
development of 3D printing equipment as an "indicator of the dynamic and
innovation capability of an economy."
China has only 8.6 percent of the world's total 3D printers compared to
38.5 percent for the U.S, he noted.
"Additional manufacturing technique will enable manufacturers to shorten
production cycle, better meet individual needs and easily cope with the
production of complex or large-scale components. There is much to be done for
domestic researchers," he said.
Since Chinese researchers ventured into the sphere in late 1990s, a
series of home-invented additional manufacturing techniques have been applied to
bio-additive manufacturing, ceramic forming and laser sintering.
At the three-day forum, domestic manufactures showcased their latest
products from chic mobile phone shells, fancy attire, lamps, shoe-pads to
complex industrial components.
China's leading researching institutes in this area include the Xi'an
Jiaotong University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Tsinghua
University and Beijing Long Yuan-Automated Fabrication System.
First invented by American scientists in 1990, 3D printing technologies
have been used in aerospace, medical care, construction, sports, entertainment
and automobile industries overseas, according to Graham Peter Tromans, chairman
of the Additive Manufacturing Association of the United Kingdom.
