Mass manufacturing turns to additive technologies for end-use components.
The change is not confined to large scale production, however. Some, like MarkForged, for example, are working to bring the materials revolution to desktop 3D printers. The company, which is also behind the Mark One, is now fine-tuning its reinforced, end-use product offerings for the creation of carbon fibre-, fibreglass-, and even Kevlar-reinforced designs. According to Jeff Klein, the company’s creative director, the final material specifications indicate that MarkForged’s carbon-fibre continuous filament fabrication, for instance, can produce materials 20 times stiffer than plastic, well ahead of the 5-times-greater strength initially anticipated.
