3D printer tagged posts

A 3D terahertz gradient-refractive index lens designed by transformation optics is achieved by fabricating “woodpile” structures with varying dimensions of subwavelength dielectric unit cells using the projection microstereolithography technique. Both simulation and experimental investigations confirm that the lens delivers an imaging resolution very close to the diffraction limit over a frequency range from 0.4 to 0.6 THz.

The new lens could be used for biomedical research and security imaging. “Terahertz is somewhat of a gap between microwaves and infrared,” said NW University’s Cheng Sun. “People are trying to fill in this gap because this spectrum carries a lot of information...

Samantha Paulsen, a bioengineering graduate student in Jordan Miller’s lab at Rice University, holds a plate on which several of 3-D-printed silicone constructs have been mounted. The constructs, which are each about the size of a small candy gummy bear, have been injected with red dye to better show the network of small vessels inside. Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University

It may provide a method to overcome one of the biggest challenges in regenerative medicine: How to deliver oxygen and nutrients to all cells in an artificial organ or tissue implant that takes days or weeks to grow in the lab prior to surgery. The study showed blood flowed normally through test constructs that were surgically connected to native blood vessels.

Miller said one of the hurdles of engineering large artificial...

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have invented a way to produce hair-like strands, fibers and bristles using a common, low-cost 3-D printer. Credit: Carnegie Mellon University

3D printers typically produce hard plastic objects, but researchers have found a way to produce hair-like strands, fibers and bristles using a common, low-cost printer. The technique for producing 3D printed hair is similar to, and inspired by the way that gossamer plastic strands are extruded when a person uses a hot glue gun.

“You just squirt a little bit of material and pull away,” said Gierad Laput. The plastic hair is produced strand by strand, so the process isn’t fast – it takes about 20-25 minutes to generate hair on 10 square millimeters...

This new technology used both a heating and then a cooling process to operate the robotic finger. Results from the study showed a more rapid flexing and extending motion of the finger as well as its ability to recover its trained shape more accurately and more completely, confirming the biomechanical basis of its trained shape. Credit: Florida Atlantic University

This robotic finger could be adapted for a prosthetic device, such as on a prosthetic hand. It uses a shape memory alloy, a 3D CAD model of a human finger, a 3D printer and a unique thermal training technique. “We have been able to thermomechanically train our robotic finger to mimic the motions of a human finger like flexion and extension,” said Engeberg...