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The organic structures are amazing in their own right but I don't see any mention of one of the "big deals" of additive manufacturing from 20 years ago - functionally graded materials.
("FGM" was cool before "nano" was in the materials world - now both are old news I guess)
With FGM you build the material properties into the structure as you, well, build the structure. Need some toughness here and some hardness over there? Here you go...
I kind of left materials stuff about then and moved into PowerPoint engineering but I hope the concept still gets attention.
I remember seeing basically a NC multi-axis welder laying down freestanding material from blended powder feedstocks at Los Alamos in 1999 - and it was like seeing the future! Then I think the program died.
They hired me the same year, so coincidence?
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'78SC, lots of other boring cars...
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