Rapid 3D printer performs 10 times faster than commercial technologies

For many applications, the biggest drawback to additive manufacturing (3D printing) is its speed. Objects the size of a Lego brick can take hours to produce, which is too long to wait in modern manufacturing. The new printer, developed by MIT's Laboratory for Manufacturing And Productivity, has an innovative printing head designed to bypass the main rate-limiting roadblocks in conventional additive manufacturing hardware.

Sponsored by Lockheed Martin, project leader Anastasios John Hart, director of the lab, analysed existing desktop 3D printers that use polymer extrusion as their printing method, and determined that there were three factors that limited their speed: how fast the printer can move its printhead; how much force it can apply to push its printing material through a nozzle; and how quickly it can transfer heat to make the material flow.

"Every year now, hundreds of thousands of desktop printers that use this process are sold around the world," Hart said. However, on average, these printers can only print at a rate of 20cm³ per hour. "That's really slow," Hart added.