#3d vs 4d shape chemistry crack
"Self- healing" pipes that could possibly heal themselves automatically if they crack or break.Oil pipelines or any other fluid carrying pipelines that can dynamically change their diameter in response to the flow rate and demand.The videos and descriptions above are indicative of the kind of applications 4-D printing technology can be put to use for: While the lab has used water as a medium for activation, we imagine that we can also create wooden composites that radically adapt to extreme environmental conditions." What does this mean for the Oil and Gas/Chemical industries and others ? The lab describes it as " Flat sheets of custom printed wood composite can be designed to self-transform in controlled and unique ways. This one about 4-D printed programmable wood is very interesting. Here's a video from the MIT Self Assembly Lab showing how a 4-D printed object changes shape to form another shape when placed in hot water. Here's an interesting Ted Talk by him on the "Emergence of 4-D Printing" Skylar Tebbits is often credited with creating the term 4-D Printing. This technology largely comes from a project at the MIT S elf-assembly Lab : "A research lab at MIT inventing self-assembly and programmable material technologies". These are hydrogels or s hape-memory polymers. In 4D manufacturing a fourth dimension - TIME is added to the 3-D printed object: you have a 3-D printed object which can change shape over time in response to external stimuli- temperature, light, etc.ĭiagram adapted from, re-drawn by Jean-Claude André | Scientific Advisor at INSISĪ 4-D object is printed like any 3-D printed object but it is printed with materials that are " smart materials" - they like the shape memory alloys of yore have the ability to change shape and size based on certain environmental triggers. In 3D printing, they keep on adding incremental layers of material along a specified print path in a process of additive manufacturing to essentially create a 3-dimensional object which now has volume: length, breadth (or width) and height (or depth). Well, to answer that, let's start with 2D - a flat layer of anything with just two dimensions - length and breadth is 2D. And I happened to be working at a pioneer in the print industry where the standard refrain was "Why are we not in the 3D print space?"And yes, they are making inroads into that space now, finally.Īnd here we are today where as an Innovation and Thought Leader at a leading consulting firm I am looking with keen interest at an emerging technology - 4D Printing which combines the two strands from my past together and can have important ramifications in the Oil and Gas/Chemicals and other Resource based industries (among others). That was my first introduction to shape shifting alloys.įast forward twenty years and 3D printing had become quite the buzzword. They were talking about Nitinol - a Nickel-Titanium alloy that has the ability to return back to a preconfigured shape after being deformed.
Nearly three decades ago as a young engineering student I was intrigued by the offer in a leading Science journal to send a tiny sliver of what they called a " shape memory alloy" to anyone who responded to a survey. Though still evolving, 4D printing technology may have the potential to play a transformative role in the Oil and Gas/ Chemical sectors with its ability to self-assemble / "shape shift" objects based on temperature, light or other environmental stimuli.
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