As we all know, tals exist in nature in compound forms, known as compounds.
Only those extrely inactive tals exist as elents, such as gold, silver, platinum, palladium... These precious tals are stable in nature and rarely react with other substances, therefore they are also known as inert tals.
Hence, most of the tals that humans can obtain in nature exist as mineral compounds, which require slting to obtain new tal elents.
However, pure tal elents have singular physical properties and often do not et usage requirents.
For instance, it is widely known that pure iron is actually very soft, and only when it forms an iron-carbon alloy with carbon does it have a hard texture.
Moreover, depending on the temperature, the lattice arrangent within iron crystals varies. Based on this physical property, iron-carbon alloys can be processed at different temperatures to obtain iron-carbon alloys with differing properties, commonly known as steel.
Humanity has a long history of using alloys, dating back over six thousand years to ancient Babylonians, who are known to be the earliest civilization to slt bronze, which is a copper-tin alloy.
The Fla Country also began using alloys early on; over three thousand years ago during the Shang Dynasty, the ancestors in the Fla Country were already slting and using bronze on a large scale, and could even produce sharp swords through forging and other processing thods.
The famous King Goujian’s Sword remains incredibly sharp even after thousands of years, capable of slicing through dozens of layers of paper with just a gentle swipe.
Therefore, in human life, alloys are ubiquitous.
However, using 3D printing to print alloys remains exceptionally challenging.
Theoretically, this is feasible, because the definition of an alloy is a solid product with tallic properties ford by mixing, lting, cooling, and solidifying one tal with another or several tals or non-tals.
So theoretically, to 3D print alloys, one just needs to mix the elental tal raw materials according to the required proportions, then process with lasers to get the required alloy.
However, achieving this is not easy.
Firstly, the mixing of tal powders must ensure the material for each sintering is uniformly proportioned overall, or errors in tal proportions will cause issues in the material’s performance, disrupting the overall structure of the printed product.
Before the disaster, Blue Planet already had laser 3D printing technology; so even printed a set of Iron Man armor from titanium tal, capable of resisting rifle shots.
But this is done within enclosed equipnt where tal powders are spread in a layer roughly 0.1 mm or even a few microters thick, and lasers are used to sinter the areas to be printed.
Only after repeating such sintering layer by layer can parts be printed.
If airflow disturbance occurs during this process, it will directly blow away the unsinted tal powders.
Slow efficiency and interference from airflow disturbance are minor issues compared to the stringent requirents; such printing is hard to print large parts and cannot print alloys.
If rely processing already alloyed powder particles, then naturally it is simple, but to process elental tals into alloys is not that easy.
A crucial factor here is temperature.
Sintering is processed at temperatures slightly below the material’s lting point to bond the powder particles, but turning different elental materials into alloys clearly requires actual lting of materials beyond just sintering.
Moreover, crucially, for so special alloys, processing temperatures need to be much higher than the material’s lting points and must be maintained for so ti to allow significant changes in material properties.
These are precisely the aspects that current 3D printing technology struggles to achieve.
However, these are not issues for Chen Xin, who can use lasers to lt elental tal powder particles, mix various tal elents together to form alloys, then cool and sinter the alloy to beco the required parts, which his 3D printer can accomplish.
Chen Xin’s 3D printer is unlike traditional equipnt that prints using a fixed frawork and print head, instead resembling a small robot.
A small robot carries a portion of raw materials, then lts them into alloys following pre-designed programs, then prints and forms them.
With enough robots, a large part can be printed quickly.
This technology draws inspiration from so sci-fi gas where so-called nano robots are often used to manufacture items through 3D printing, which Chen Xin has uniquely adapted.
He just didn’t make the robots so tiny but rather akin to small drone-like robots.
After agreeing to create a small prototype for the engineering technicians, Chen Xin quickly completed the prototype using the workbench and chanical arms in the shelter and even upgraded it.
"This... this is just astonishing!" The engineering technicians, watching the small 3D printing robot like a drone print a miniature model of the Eiffel Tower right before them, could not help but exclaim, yet appeared sowhat speechless.
"This is the small prototype of the 3D printing equipnt I ntioned. It can be made larger or smaller according to different practical usage needs, although this size is quite versatile for various contexts." While demonstrating the prototype of this 3D printing equipnt, Chen Xin explained, "It can carry about two kilograms of raw materials each ti, which can be pre-processed alloy powders or tal elent powder mixtures. Moreover, multiple devices can be networked to print large tal components required."
"With this, architectural construction can beco much simpler!" The imagination of engineering technicians began envisioning the sight of hundreds of such 3D printing robots simultaneously starting work, making buildings sprout like bamboo shoots from the ground.
"It’s not just architectural construction; it can also be used in chanical manufacturing and tal processing. The advantage of using 3D printing lies in sufficient printing precision; printed tal parts may not require further processing, and regardless of how peculiar your needed shape is, 3D printing can realize it." Looking at the excited expression of the engineering technician, Chen Xin smiled and said, "For fields requiring high precision components, this is extrely useful."
Reviews
All reviews (0)