Hi Machine Bros!
Do you want to know which are the biggest 3D printed objects? Stay! here we will show you.
There are still many people who associate 3D printing with small parts, this time we want to end this myth or belief and today you will find the biggest 3D printed objects. 3D printing is a technology that has been advancing rapidly, to the point that today it is possible to find large-scale printers, capable of large-scale printing, and this is exactly what we want to show you, we will talk to you of 3D printed objects that have large physical dimensions.
1. 3D Printed Two-Story House
45 days was the time it took to finish this 3D printed house in the Tongzhou district of Beijing. With the use of this technology, it was possible to build a two-story house with 400 square meters and walls up to two and a half meters (2.5m) high.
2. 3D Printed Building in Dubai
In Dubai, a company called Apis Cor built a 2-story building, with a height of 9.5 meters and an area of 640 square meters. According to the company, the project took 500 hours of printing, 8 hours per day.
Although apparently there is still some skepticism about this achievement announced by Apis Cor, this is because in one of their first constructions they talked about the possibility of building houses in 24 hours, but in reality, it took them 4 months to build that house.
3. 3D Printed Bridge
In Shanghai, China, in February 2019 the longest bridge in the world printed in 3D was announced. The parts of the bridge were 3D printed by 2 robotic arms and the printing time was approximately 19 days. The project managers (Tsinghua University) claim that the bridge cost two-thirds of what it would have cost to build it in the conventional way.
It should be noted that this was not the first 3D printed bridge, in Holland, the Eindhoven University of Technology in conjunction with BAM Infra built the first 3D printed bridge for cyclists.
In Madrid, on December 14, 2016, the first 3D printed pedestrian bridge was inaugurated. Which measures 12 meters long and has a width of 1.75 meters, it was designed by the Instituto de Arquitectura Avanzada de Catalunya (IAAC).
4. The Wave, a 3D Printed Camper
The Wave is a kind of 3D printed tent (or camper), designed by Randy James in collaboration with Saskatchewan Polytechnic, in the city of Saskatoon, Canada.
It is 4 meters long, 1.8 meters wide and weighs approximately 272kg. This project took approximately 230 hours of printing. You can find out more about this project here World’s first 3D printed camper trailer completed.
5. 3D Printed Female Golfer Sculpture
Prudence is a sculpture that takes the shape of a female golfer. This sculpture is 1.9 meters tall and has an approximate weight of 18kg. Prudence is made up of 21 pieces printed in 3D with PLA, which was made by a company called Mikrotvornica for its exhibition in Dublin Abigail O’Brien’s.
6. 3D Printed Human Sculpture
James Bruton, youtuber who owns a robotics and 3D printing channel, scanned himself, and then printed a model of him in large-scale 3D.
This job took him approximately 500 hours to print, with 2 printers he kept working practically 24/7. With this sculpture, James managed to break a Guinness record for his time. We will leave you the link of James’ YouTube channel “XRobots” and his website xrobots.co.uk.
7. 3D Printed Dinosaur Model
On January 15, 2016, a replica of a titanosaur printed in 3D was exhibited in New York at the Museum of Natural History, the model is 37 meters high, was made in Canada and required half a year of work.
8. A 3D Printed Airplane by Airbus Called “Thor”
The aeronautical company Airbus officially presented its small Thor drone at the ILA Berlin Air Show. This aircraft was completely 3D printed, it has an approximate weight of 21 kg and is about 4 meters long. According to its creators, this plane consists of approximately 50 pieces and can be printed in 4 weeks.
9. Aeon 1 and Terran 1
Relativity Space, an American Start-up developed a robotic arm capable of 3D printing with metal, this in order to develop rocket engines. In general, rocket engines consist of many parts and with the use of 3D printing technology, it is possible to develop them with only three (3) parts, having fewer parts reduces the probability of failure. Furthermore, the Aeon 1 takes about a month of work to manufacture, compared to the 6 months it takes using traditional technology.
The Aeon 1 engine was used for the Terran 1 rocket, which is manufactured using the same 3D printing technology. The Terran 1 has approximately 100 times fewer parts than other rockets.
10. 3D Printed Vehicles
A company called Local Motors produces 3D printed vehicles, Strati was their first project, a 3D printed electric vehicle with ABS reinforced with carbon fiber.
The printing time for this vehicle has been reduced to 45 hours thanks to the work in conjunction with Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Local Motors announced in 2016, Olli an autonomous electric vehicle with 3D printed parts, which could be classified as a kind of “minibus”.
11. 3D Printed Electric Motorcycle
The Light Rider is a 3D printed motorcycle by APWorks, weighs 35kg and reaches a maximum speed of 79 Km/h, has a battery that allows a range of 60km at top speed and this 3D printed motorcycle is powered by a 6 kW electric motor.
It is necessary to mention that even though the manufacturers call The Light Rider “an electric motorcycle”, its performance really resembles a high-end e-Bike.
12. 25ft Long 3D Printed Boat
The University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center, on October 2019 broke the Guinness record for the longest 3D printing in the world. They achieved this feat by 3D printing a functional boat 25 feet long (7.62m) and 2,267 Kg. It was printed in 72 hours.
13. 3D Printed Rowing Boat
University of Washington students, members of the Washington Open Object Fabricators (WOOF) team, 3D printed a rowing boat, which was constructed from melted plastic bottles.
The boat ended up measuring 2.13 meters long and weighing approximately 18.1kg. One of the highlights of this project is that a similar bottle could have cost $800 USD, but cleaning and shredding 250 recycled plastic bottles (where milk was packaged) only costs $3.2 USD.
14. 3D Printed Maritime Propeller
The first 3D printed marine propeller, its name is WAAMpeller and it was built from 298 layers of nickel aluminum bronze alloy.
Five companies were involved in this project: RAMLAB, Promarin, Autodesk, Bureau Veritas and Damen. It should be noted that a second propeller was later manufactured.
The propellers are functional and installed in a Damen Stan Tug 1606.
15. Bugatti 3D Printed Brake Caliper
In 2018, Bugatti had produced the first 3D printed titanium brake caliper, earning the title for the date of the “world’s largest titanium functional component produced by additive manufacturing”.
The printing technology used was SLS (Selective Laser Sintering), the liner weighs 2.9 kg, comparing this weight with the aluminum manufacture that has a weight of 4.9 kg we can see that it is a significant reduction in weight. The printing time was 45 hours and 2213 layers.
16. Cutting Tool For Boeing
By 2016 Boeing with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) created a tool for cutting and drilling, which helps in the construction of the wings of the generation of Boeing 777x. This tool was 3D printed.
By the date of its manufacture it had managed to obtain the title of “longest solid object 3D printed in a single piece”. The manufacture of this tool took 30 hours, instead of the 7 days that would have been necessary using other techniques. The part is made of a combination of 80% ABS and 20% carbon fiber and weighs approximately 745 kg.
17. Giant Fidget Spinner
Michel David, an artist in Berlin, decided to design and 3D print a giant fidget spinner, in collaboration with BigRep and All3dp.
In order to print this spinner they used a 3D printer called Bigrep one, it took them 50 hours to print this model.
18. “Sofa So Good” A Real Scale 3D SLA Print Of A Sofa
Sofa So Good is a sofa printed in 3D using SLA technology.
This model was printed on a 3DSystems’s ProX 950. It was created using approximately 2.5 liters of resin and ended up weighing approximately 2.5 kg. The So Good Sofa measures 1.5m x 0.75m x 0.55m, and was designed by Janne Kytannen. It is worth mentioning that to print this model no supports were required due to its amazing design.
19. 6-Meter Long Metal Structure
Researchers at Cranfield University using Arc Additive Manufacture (WAAM) 3D printing technology were able to fabricate a 6-meter long metal frame and it ended up weighing approximately 300 kg.
The frame is made of space grade aluminum. The purpose of this project was to demonstrate the advantages of manufacturing with this technology.
Professor Stewart Williams, Cranfield University’s Additive Manufacturing Program Leader said:
“Hundreds of millions of pounds are spent on medium to large-scale components by the aerospace industry each year. There is great potential for significant cost savings in terms of waste and production efficiency if we can transform the way these parts are manufactured. This demonstration clearly shows the potential of the WAAM process with this newly-acquired machine for changing future manufacturing processes”
Conclusions
It is clear that 3D printing is here to stay. And it’s not only to print on a small scale, with 3D printing it is possible to create things that have large physical dimensions.
Another point to take into account is the possibility of printing large things with small printers, but in parts, and then joining them, we will talk about this in another article.
Large-scale 3D printing has managed to lower costs and reduce manufacturing times in certain areas or branches, for example, in the aerospace industry with the construction of the Terran 1 rocket.
Every year there are new large-scale 3D prints, for this reason this article will be constantly updated.
See you soon Machine Bros!
