The rise of 3-D printing

Photo provided to China Daily

Lian Ning, general manager of Nanjing Zijin-Lead Electronics, says "3-D printing technology has been misunderstood. People believe they can print cars and airplanes at home. Actually, right now we can only print parts of cars or planes, which need assembling."

Lian's company produces and sells four types of 3-D printers.

Luo Jun, president of the World 3-D Printing Technology Industry Alliance, has written a new book, Welcome the Era of 3D Printing 3.0, which will be published in April.

"3-D printing technology cannot replace traditional manufacturing techniques that make products on a large scale," he wrote.

"It provides solutions for sophisticated designs, such as those used in the aerospace field, and customized products. However, considering the high unit cost, the limited choices of additive materials and relatively low technological level, it seems impossible that 3-D printing will ever be applied in traditional, large-scale manufacturing."

Li Guiren, chief technology officer of AOD, has years of experience in the traditional molding industry and produced auto components until 2012, when he entered the 3-D printing industry. He says it costs too much to use molding tools to build customized products, while 3-D printing techniques save on both time and money.

In 2013, Wang Huaming, a professor at Beihang University, introduced the technology of laser additive manufacturing developed by his team in a popular online video.

"China has been developing its own airplanes. Mold tools of a very small frame of the airplane Baosteel produced cost 70 million yuan ... each small part cost hundreds of thousands of yuan," he says. "An airplane part produced by the US used 3 tons of material to make but the part itself was only 144 kg, less than 5 percent of the total precious material used.

"Using our laser additive manufacturing technique, the utilization ratio of the material can reach 80 percent."