3D printing offers great possibilities to various industries

Additive manufacturing, commonly known as 3D printing, has revolutionized various industries, offering great advantages and possibilities. Additive manufacturing enables the creation of intricate and customized structures with unmatched precision and speed. Examples of the advantages gained with additive manufacturing over traditional manufacturing methods, include rapid prototyping allowing for swift design iterations and cost-effective production of spare parts, exceptional freedom of design and tailorability. The flexibility of 3D printing extends beyond prototyping, allowing for on-demand, localized production, reducing waste, and logistical challenges. These are a significant assent in several fields of industry, such as in biomedical, aerospace, automotive and defence industries.

When applying additive manufacturing methods for polymeric parts and products, understanding and managing thermal effects are pivotal for successful outcomes. The precise control of temperature during the printing process significantly influences resulting material properties, structural integrity, and overall print quality preventing issues like warping and delamination. Furthermore, polymers are used as carriers or binders of ceramic products for which a thermal treatment is applied after printing to remove the binder, to sinter and densify the material. Therefore, the characterization of thermal effects and properties of printed materials are of high importance.

The Finnish Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry Association FinTAC organizes a seminar on applications of thermoanalytical methods in 3D printing in the ChemBio Finland event on April 10th 2024 at Helsinki Expo and Convention Centre. In the seminar, different additive manufacturing methods and applications are presented. Martin Lennox from Aalto University focuses on thermal effects and analyses in 3-D printed parts by binder-jetting. Nonna Nurmi from Tampere University continues the same theme of postprocessing the printed parts, but from the point of view of supercritical carbon dioxide extracted vat photopolymerization prints. Professor Minna Kellomäki will discuss the medical use of additive manufacturing in her talk about the influence of temperature to crosslinking and bioprinting of hydrogels and hydrogel composites. In these applications, where soft hydrogels are printed together with cells, the challenges during and after printing include moth controlling the material properties of the printed polymer as well as on keeping the cells alive throughout the process. Finally, a very different application area will be presented in the talk of Satu Mustalahti from the Finnish Defence Research Agency. In this presentation, the applicability of additive manufacturing technologies on explosives and the required material development cases will be addressed. The seminar is organized partly in Finnish, partly in English. FinTAC welcomes all interested visitors to join the seminar!

Writer: Essi Sarlin, FinTAC ry / Tenure track professor, University of Tampere