A 3-D printer
that makes steel structures appear out of thin air will try its hand at
building — wait, printing — a pedestrian bridge. MX3D is a Netherlands-based start-up that
researches and develops 3-D printing technologies. Later this year the company
is planning its most ambitious project yet: Using 3-D printers to construct a
bridge over a canal in the heart of Amsterdam.
Build Me a Bridge
The MX3D team
essentially takes everything you know about 3-D printing and turns it on its
head. The traditional process would be this: Printers build objects from the
bottom up by applying layer after layer of plastic goop from dispenser that
shuttles back and forth along a horizontal plane. The end product has telltale
layers that sort of resemble a topographic map.
This is not how
MX3D printers work. Instead, the MX3D-Metal printer builds structures by
ejecting small amounts of molten steel through a welding nozzle at the end of a
6-axis robotic arm — it can craft objects from any angle, rather than simply
along a horizontal plane. As molten metal flows through the nozzle, it quickly
sets, which allows the printer to produce straight lines, spirals or any other
shape for that matter, out of thin air.
“3D printing
like this is still unexplored territory and leads to a new form language that
is not bound by additive layers. This method makes it possible to create 3D
objects in almost any size and shape,”
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