4D printing, which builds objects using smart materials, could change everything.
This next-generation technology will enable companies to manufacture products that can self-assemble, reshape themselves, or otherwise react to changing conditions, revolutionizing how we design, manufacture, and interact with objects of all kinds.
first developed the technique in partnership with Stratasys and Autodesk, but researchers around the globe are developing new use cases.3
Programmable Materials
There is no such thing as a 4D printer; 4D printing is actually a new use for 3D printers. The real stars of the show are smart materials, enabling the printed object to alter itself long after it is made. These materials—such as hydrogels, or shape memory polymers—are programmed to stimulate the object to change its shape, function, or color, for example, when it encounters water, light, heat, or electric current.
The output? Self-flattening boxes for warehouses and logistics. Plumbing pipes that expand or contract in response to water flow. Medical implants that adjust to our bodies. Self-assembling shelters that spring into place after natural disaster. Bridges and roads that can self-heal.
The First Shapeshifters
While 4D printing is largely used for prototyping, a number of real use cases have emerged:
- NASA’s flexible metal “space chain mail,” which could be used to shield a spacecraft from meteorites, for astronaut spacesuits, or for capturing objects on the surface of other planets5
- A self-assembling shoe that could eliminate a complex production process involving significant labor6
- A 4D-printed airway splint that grows with the child for infants suffering from a condition that causes their windpipes to collapse7
- Airbus’s air inlet component, which is made of programmable carbon fiber that adjust itself automatically to control airflow used to cool the engine, removing the need for heavy mechanical control systems8
A Living Product
4D printing can exponentially expand what is achievable in prototyping, design, manufacture, and post-production adaptability and usage.
Companies will be able to produce not just a static product but one that will change and grow throughout its lifecycle. When combined with other advancing digital capabilities, including Internet of Things, AI, and robotics, the potential disruption could be even more profound.
Download the executive brief 4D Printing: Self-Assemble, Self-Shape, Self-Repair.
Read the full article 4D Printing: A Shape-Shifting Revolution.
