The Additive Manufacturing industry is predominantly forward looking, but for the 25th volume of the original TCT Magazine, I have been studying the past to get to grips with the present.
It's not an easy industry to chart with many claiming the first patent for a three-dimensional manufacturing technology. Despite the commonly held belief that this technology's inception was in the 1980s, you can trace patents for the principle of building a solid object layer-by-layer by hardening a liquid photopolymer way back to 1951, with O.J. Munz US patent (No 2,775,758) for Photo-glyph recording.
What is correct, however, is that the first commercialisation of 3D printing technologies began in the 1980s and by the 1990s their adoption increased amongst early adopters. Although the inventions by Chuck Hull and Scott Crump of stereolithography (SLA) and Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) respectively, came out of the U.S. it wasn't long before European players entered the fray, with Germany, and in particular, Electro Optical Systems (EOS) GmbH, leading the way.
Despite the fact that 3D Systems and Stratasys had stolen an early march on the European market for Rapid Prototyping, by 1993 EOS were claiming 50% of the total European rapid prototyping market. At that time Dr Hans Langer’s company had one system, the STEREOS - a stereolithography technology that EOS no longer manufactures. Currently, EOS produces a range of ten different 3D printers, four plastic Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) machines and six Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) devices. It is this move towards metals that best represents the German market.
The home of direct metal 3D printing technology is Germany, in just the sixth ever edition of TCT Magazine back in 1995, EOS announced its intention to develop a metal rapid tooling method based on its established laser sintering process. Within five years, as well as EOS, teams from Concept Laser, Realizer, and the forerunner to SLM Solutions, MTT, were all developing methods for the 3D printing of metals throughout Germany.
Two decades later, Germany is the forerunner of the fourth industrial revolution with 'Industrie 4.0'. The fact that German machine manufacturers are leading the way in taking the technologies to series production plays a significant part in the factories of the future vision.
After a quarter of a century reporting on 3D technologies, TCT Magazine is best placed to witness the shift that has taken some fairly raw tech used for rapid prototyping to hardware and software capable of manufacturing flight-crucial parts, automotive chassis and even life-saving medical devices.
As a whole, the TCT Group is dedicated to accelerating 3D technologies and is continuing to lower the barriers that help the community access the essential information. The global event series is ever-expanding, and in turn, the community diversifies.
The success of our Frankfurt-based event formnext powered by tct has meant an ever-growing readership based in the DACH regions. The next logical barrier to lower is that of language. As well as editions across Europe, North America and a Chinese language version, we're proud to introduce this German language edition of TCT Magazine to the portfolio.
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Exhibit at the UK's definitive and most influential 3D printing and additive manufacturing event, TCT 3Sixty.
The first issue includes features from several German based companies like SLM Solutions, EOS, Concept Laser, DyeMansion and trinckle, as well as features on aerospace compliance, the state of the German market from The Aachen Center for Additive Manufacturing, and much more.
We hope you enjoy this first issue and welcome suggestions for features and stories going forward.
