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3D Printing Influence in Engineering

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2020) | Viewed by 3410

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Warwick Manufacturing Group, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK
Interests: process Intensification; catalysis; microreactors; microfluidics; fluid mechanics; heat transfer; multiphase flows; CO2 capture; biorefinery; combustion; radiofrequency heating; 3D printed reactors
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The special issue aims at highlighting the impact of 3D printing in many engineering applications. These papers or reviews can help with the deeper understanding about the 3D printing engineering applications. With the increasing importance of 3D printing, it would be useful to see the main recent cutting-edge applications considering 3D printing in many areas such as in biomedical, construction, mechanical and chemical engineering.

3D printing may reduce time, materials, costs, and risks in some cases applications compared with traditional technologies. Given the flexibility of 3D printing, new materials could be developed efficiently and this may affect resources and provide a more sustainable future. A combination with methods could reduce the number of laboratory tests and apply design optimization techniques to develop sustainable solutions.

Main goal is to find out what kind of direction is the 3D printing techniques developing towards and to find out what is enhanced with new 3D printing processes and their impact on sustainability, energy and resources. This will also help for possible future applications. Finally, the papers published in this Special Issue will increase current knowledge and technologies to include sustainability criteria in the all these different applications.

Dr. Javier Fernandez-Garcia
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • 3D printing
  • engineering
  • process enhancement
  • construction
  • biomedicine
  • mechanical engineering
  • chemical engineering

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 4165 KiB  
Article
Assessing the Suitability of Freeform Injection Molding for Low Volume Injection Molded Parts: A Design Science Approach
by Elham Sharifi, Atanu Chaudhuri, Brian Vejrum Waehrens, Lasse Guldborg Staal and Saeed Davoudabadi Farahani
Sustainability 2021, 13(3), 1313; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13031313 - 27 Jan 2021
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3006
Abstract
Low-volume manufacturing remains a challenge, especially for parts that need to be injection-molded. Freeform injection molding (FIM) is a novel method that combines elements from direct additive manufacturing (DAM) and injection molding (IM) to resolve some of the challenges seen in low-volume injection [...] Read more.
Low-volume manufacturing remains a challenge, especially for parts that need to be injection-molded. Freeform injection molding (FIM) is a novel method that combines elements from direct additive manufacturing (DAM) and injection molding (IM) to resolve some of the challenges seen in low-volume injection molding. In this study, we use a design science approach to explore the suitability of FIM for the manufacturing of low volume injection-molded parts. We provide an overview of the benefits and limitations of traditional IM and discuss how DAM and indirect additive manufacturing (IAM) methods, such as soft tooling and FIM, can address some of the existing drawbacks of IM for short series production. A set of different parts was identified and assessed using a design science-based approach to demonstrate how to incubate FIM as a solution to address the challenges faced in short series production with IM. This initial process innovation was followed by solution refinement, involving the optimization of the FIM processes. Finally, a “cross-case” analysis was conducted using the framework of context, intervention, mechanism and outcomes to generate insights about the generalizability of the results. It is concluded that FIM combines the short lead-times, low start-up costs and design freedom of DAM with the versatility and scalability of IM to allow manufacturers to bring low volume products to the market faster, more cheaply and with lower risk, and to maintain the relevance of these products through easy customization and adaptations once they have been launched. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 3D Printing Influence in Engineering)
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