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Originally Posted by IROC
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As a metallurgy grad student at Los Alamos in the late '90s I saw their rig for doing metal additive "manufacturing". Also that was simultaneous with the whole "functionally graded materials" trend/mania so there were dreams of, envision one solid steel item, putting "a pinch of" hardness here, toughness there, weldability over there and so on. The actual goal was to use it for more interesting materials, like refractory metals, but feedstock was really tough to figure out.
Then I think the PI died and we just handed most of it over to Sandia Labs.
It's funny that now that we're over the "nano" thing, 3-D printing is back. What's sexy in my mind there is the "AI/natural/evolved" structures where you plug into a computer what you really need and you might get an optimized solution that looks like a tree which, while nearly impossible to machine, is kind of easy to print.
But do we really need 3D houses? Heck, that (I forgot the real term for it) system of foundations where one or two people can "Lego" a set of hollow polystyrene-clad forms together in a day and pour that afternoon? Short of those scandi-hyperefficient houses heated with body heat - I want that stuff if I ever built a house.
Oh, and 3-D metal? Wow, welding in 2-ishD is still kind of magic - there's lots that we are still learning as it is pretty far from a equilibrium process. Moving into another dimension is crazy. So much opportunity! I'm not sure what neutrons bring, but if you have lots of neutrons why not? (I are not neutron-material interaction person but I thought they pretty much just cruise through whatever. Would have guessed that there wouldn't be much spatial contrast/signal to work with - though for the right atoms and the right energies you can do interesting things [heh])