Today, when the digital tide is sweeping, 3D printing, as an emerging manufacturing technology with data as the core, is accelerating its integration with emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things, cloud computing, big data, blockchain, and artificial intelligence, and is developing for various industries. And upgrade to inject innovation momentum. Every ordinary person in it has gradually realized the impact of 3D printing on daily life.

At present, the domestic 3D printing industry has developed rapidly in Zhejiang, Hubei, Guangdong, Shaanxi, Beijing and other provinces and cities. With the strong support of the government, the 3D printing industry is developing rapidly, and 3D printing industrial parks continue to emerge. At present, domestic 3D printing industrial parks are mainly distributed in coastal areas, and industrial clusters are also formed in the central region.

Compared with the traditional manufacturing process, 3D printing technology has many advantages such as rapid prototyping, high manufacturing precision, and good complex structure forming ability. Many segmented scenes in the manufacturing industry gradually use 3D printing for product prototyping, or directly use 3D printing for the production of parts and complete machines, and the application scope of 3D printing in the industrial field is gradually increasing.

From the perspective of the 3D printing industry chain, it can be divided into 3D printing materials, 3D printing services, 3D printing equipment, and 3D printing applications according to the upstream, middle and downstream. From the perspective of equipment types, 3D printers are mainly divided into consumer and industrial grades. Industrial-grade 3D printers are faster and more accurate, and are widely used in aerospace, automobile manufacturing, medical and other fields.

According to IDC’s Semi-Annual Tracking Report on China’s 3D Printer Market, since 2015, China’s industrial-grade 3D printers (equipment of USD 25K and above) have continued to increase in shipments and sales, and shipments in the first half of 2019 have increased year-on-year. 5.1%, sales increased by 9.3% year-on-year. IDC predicts that the annual sales volume in 2019 is expected to exceed RMB 2.7 billion.

IDC statistics show that the main application of industrial-grade 3D printing is still the production of prototypes (verified samples manufactured in small quantities before finalization), accounting for 84.1% of the total, and only 10.1% of finished products (the rest 5.8% is produced by production auxiliary equipment), which means that 3D printing has great development potential in industrial production.

 Generally speaking, 3D printed prototypes are made by laser rapid prototyping machine. After polishing, it is a kind of model that is used as a mold. The advantage of the 3D printing prototype is to reduce the production cost and time cost, further verify the possibility of the product designer's creative design, and provide a more reliable guarantee for the mass production of certain products.

In addition to 3D printing for the manufacture of parts such as automobiles, airplanes, and ships, robot shells and medical surgical guides can also be manufactured by 3D printing. At present, many companies at home and abroad have begun to use 3D printing technology to manufacture robot shells and some plastic parts. Generally, 3D printing photosensitive resin materials are used to print robot shell prototypes, and the functional prototypes inside the robot can be printed with nylon materials.

In traditional manufacturing, companies need to determine the size of their factories and production lines according to customer needs, and also consider a series of production factors such as parts storage, delivery cycle, inventory quantity, transportation costs, and the consequent increase in labor and tax changes. All of this means a lot of costs and risks, and the on-demand manufacturing method based on 3D printing is expected to change the traditional manufacturing method of product delivery and make industrial product manufacturing more efficient and intelligent.

Some researchers pointed out that with the gradual emergence of manufacturing requirements for refined products such as medical, automotive, energy, and aerospace, lightweight design will become an important direction for the future development of the 3D printing industry. 3D printed parts can achieve weight reduction, which is also a major advantage of 3D printing compared with ordinary product manufacturing processes. The weight reduction of new energy vehicles, artificial skeletons, and rocket loads is likely to become the focus of research in various countries.

It is worth noting that the development of 3D printing materials and the excavation of high value-added customization needs will become the two major driving forces for the further expansion of the entire 3D printing market. High efficiency, low price, and high quality have gradually become 3D printing production. Main points of service. In 2020, high-quality industrial-grade 3D printers will provide more assistance for industrial product manufacturing.