University Times

3-D printing technology isn’t new, but its increasing affordability and availability is creating new opportunities on campus for members of the University community to create physical objects from digital files.

3-D printers have been in use in the Swanson School of Engineering for a decade. More recently, the University’s Health Sciences Library System (HSLS) and Center for Instructional Development and Distance Education (CIDDE) have been taking a closer look at practical uses for faculty, staff and students.

Once the domain of product developers — the technology was invented in the 1980s to facilitate prototyping by enabling design changes and the manufacturing of parts without the expense of molds — 3-D printing is moving into the consumer realm, thanks to the recent expiration of patents and user-friendly advances in computer-aided design (CAD) software.

Consumer-grade 3-D printers cost around $2,000 and myriad designs are available — many for free — on sites such as thingiverse.com, which features digital design files for items ranging from the practical to the whimsical.

But it’s not all about toys, tools and gadgets. Recognizing the potential for aiding medical research, the National Institutes of Health recently launched the NIH 3-D Print Exchange (http://3Dprint.nih.gov.). In addition to tutorials on 3-D printing software, the public site has designs for tools, labware, models of bacteria, body parts and chemical structures — even a microscope adaptor for an iPhone.

In a prepared release on the site launch, NIH director Francis S. Collins stated: “3-D printing is a potential game changer for medical research. At NIH, we have seen an incredible return on investment; pennies’ worth of plastic have helped investigators address important scientific questions while saving time and money. We hope that the 3-D Print Exchange will expand interest and participation in this new and exciting field among scientists, educators and students.”

*

According to HSLS technology services librarian Julia Dahm, “There’s growing interest in offering access to 3-D printers in libraries.” She noted that the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh offers training and access to its 3-D printer free at the Oakland branch.

Last year, she began investigating how HSLS could help connect the University community with 3-D printing technology.

While the library hasn’t ruled out having its own 3-D printer someday, for now Dahm is serving as a liaison to existing 3-D printing resources on campus. She also has developed an hour-long class to introduce users to the technology.

The workshop, “Create It Yourself With 3-D Printing,” is offered periodically as part of HSLS’s array of classes. In it, Dahm explains the terminology and history of additive manufacturing, rapid prototyping and the rise of today’s maker-culture phenomenon.

The session includes video of her own project: the manufacture of a library study room key tag using a desktop MakerBot, and current examples of health-related applications for 3-D printing, such as building customizable prosthetics for children, creating anatomical models as study aids for medical students and modeling medical scans to help surgeons plan their approach to an operation.

While 3-D printing is becoming a more familiar concept, “There’s not a huge demand yet,” she said. “It needs to get more common and have more quality at the consumer level.”

Large-scale manufacturing remains cheaper, “and they have what you want,” Dahm said. “But this fills a niche for things that can’t be mass produced.”

*

CIDDE’s classroom services division — whose primary role is to help faculty and staff use technology effectively in teaching and learning — is experimenting with a recently purchased 3-D printer and assessing interest among faculty, said Michael Arenth, director of classroom and media services.

As one of its initial projects, Arenth said, CIDDE printed structural models for a chemistry department faculty member.

“We’re constantly looking at what’s on the horizon of technology,” said Arenth, noting that the education technology organization New Media Consortium (NMC) includes 3-D printing among a handful of important developments to watch in education technology for higher education.

NMC, in its 2014 Horizon Report, predicted broad adoption of 3-D printing in higher education within two-three years, Arenth noted.

Arenth said CIDDE’s focus is on the mainstream aspects of 3-D printing. The rise of maker spaces and increasing popularity of maker culture brings students to campus “with different expectations, and Pitt wants to respond,” he said, noting that someday there could be stations around campus where individuals could print their own 3-D files.

The technology isn’t solely for science-related fields, he said. For instance, theatre groups could print 3-D models of stage sets prior to their actual construction.

For now, his group is especially interested in reaching out to schools and academic departments that may lack the resources to invest in the technology on their own. “We’re looking to hear from people who may have needs,” Arenth said.

*

While 3-D printing is increasingly accessible at the consumer level, the go-to guru and gatekeeper for Pitt’s higher-end 3-D printing resources is J. Andrew Holmes of the Swanson School of Engineering’s Swanson Center for Product Innovation (SCPI).

The printers, which turn a digital design into a 3-D object, are among an array of tools available for prototyping and rapid manufacturing at SCPI, which also houses a machine shop and electronics shop.

Holmes said 3-D printing is merely a tool to help people get work done. “You have to know what it’s good for,” he said. “It’s not for building square things.” There are other tools for that.

“It’s for making things you can’t make in any other way.”

Instead of making parts and putting them together, 3-D printing can make it possible to create pre-assembled items, with hinges or movable parts, for instance. The technology also enables shapes to be optimized for weight and strength without the limitations of traditional manufacturing. Certain shapes that would be difficult to machine can easily be printed, layer by layer, he said.

Times have changed since Holmes’ first encounter with 3-D printing — in 1995, when the only machine in the area was at CMU, and learning computer-aided design was a weekslong endeavor.

Pitt’s first 3-D printer had a quarter-million dollar price tag a decade ago, said Holmes. That professional-grade stereolithography (SLA) machine, which uses a computer-guided laser to selectively cure and solidify a liquid polymer, is still in use.

The center also has a high-quality fused deposition modeling (FDM) printer, a $35,000 machine the size of a refrigerator that feeds a heated thermoplastic filament through a nozzle to build items layer by layer, along with several consumer-grade MakerBot printers that use the technology.

Consumer-grade machines can be purchased for around $2,000, but they can’t match the resolution and reliability of the more expensive models. Still, users can create some amazing things. A Pitt engineering student designed and built his own brushless motor using one of SCPI’s MakerBot 3-D printers, which are available to engineering students 24/7. Time-lapse video of his project is featured at http://hackaday.com/2014/07/30/a-3d-printed-brushless-motor/.

Holmes, whose background is in machining, has been at Pitt since 1986. Formerly part of the McGowan Center for Artificial Organ Development team that developed the Streamliner artificial heart and blood pump, he has worked in the engineering school since 2001.

In addition to working with students — he speaks in senior design classes and assists with product development projects — for a fee he assists individuals from other areas of the University.

Among his most recent projects: creating a prototype for School of Dental Medicine researchers in prosthodontics who are studying how wear on the cutting burrs that are used in milling dental crowns affects the accuracy of the fit.

“We want to know when to change the burrs to ensure quality restorations,” said prosthodontics faculty member Robert Engelmeier. Is the fifth or 10th or 15th crown as accurate as the first?

Minimizing the gap between the tooth and the restoration is important in keeping bacteria out, noted prosthodontics faculty member Thomas Kunkel.

Holmes took a sketch on graph paper of a die replicating an ideal crown preparation to a digital design — “You can’t make a 3-D part without a 3-D dataset,” he said —  to the SLA printer to create a prototype in epoxy resin for the team to evaluate.

Once the researchers are satisfied that the die is exactly right, it will be made in stainless steel.

And that’s the beauty of 3-D printing: “It has a lot to do with mass customizations. You design, make, make changes,” Holmes  said. “You don’t need any tools to make this stuff.”

—Kimberly K. Barlow