With the ability to print metal structures with complex shapes and unique mechanical properties, metal additive manufacturing (AM) could be revolutionary. However, without a better understanding of how metal AM structures behave as they are 3D printed, the technology remains too unreliable for widespread adoption in manufacturing and part quality remains a challenge.
Researchers in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)’s nondestructive evaluation (NDE) group are tackling this challenge by developing first-of-their-kind approaches to look at how materials and structures evolve inside a metal AM structure during printing. These NDE techniques can become enabling technologies for metal AM, giving manufacturers the data they need to develop better simulations, processing parameters and predictive controls to ensure part quality and consistency.
“If you want people to use metal AM components out in the world, you need NDE,” said David Stobbe, group leader for NDE ultrasonics and sensors in the Materials Engineering Division (MED). “If we can prove that AM-produced parts behave as designed, it will allow them to proliferate, be used in safety-critical components in aerospace, energy and other sectors and hopefully open a new paradigm in manufacturing.”
To address these shortcomings, the team behind the latest study turned to bioprinting – a type of 3D printing that uses living cells and cell-friendly materials to create 3D structures. They took trophoblast cells and mixed them with a synthetic gel before 3D-printing them in precise droplets.
The printed cells then grew into miniature placentas, and the researchers compared them to organoids made via traditional manual methods.
“The organoids we grew in the bioprinted gel developed differently to those grown in an animal-derived gel, and formed different numbers of trophoblast sub-types. This highlighted that the environment organoids are grown in can control how they mature,” first author Dr Claire Richards said.
The field of tissue engineering aims to replicate the structure and function of real biological tissues. This engineered tissue has potential applications in disease modeling, drug discovery, and implantable grafts.
The body movements performed by humans and other animals are known to be supported by several intricate biological and neural mechanisms. While roboticists have been trying to develop systems that emulate these mechanisms for decades, the processes driving these systems’ motions remain very different.
Researchers at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Northwestern University and other institutes recently developed new biohybrid robots that combine living cells from mice with 3D printed hydrogel structures with wireless optoelectronics.
These robots, presented in a paper published in Science Robotics, have neuromuscular junctions where the neurons can be controlled using optogenetic techniques, emulating the neural mechanisms that support human movements.
Pregnancy complications lead to more than 260,000 maternal deaths and millions of infant deaths globally. One serious condition in pregnancy linked to placental dysfunction is preeclampsia, which affects 5%–8% of pregnancies.
The study, led by Associate Professor Lana McClements and first author Dr. Claire Richards, from the UTS School of Life Sciences, has just been published in the journal Nature Communications.
Four research volunteers will soon participate in NASA’s year-long simulation of a Mars mission inside a habitat at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. This mission will provide NASA with foundational data to inform human exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
Ross Elder, Ellen Ellis, Matthew Montgomery, and James Spicer enter into the 1,700-square-foot Mars Dune Alpha habitat on Sunday, Oct. 19, to begin their mission. The team will live and work like astronauts for 378 days, concluding their mission on Oct. 31, 2026. Emily Phillips and Laura Marie serve as the mission’s alternate crew members.
Through a series of Earth-based missions called CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog), carried out in the 3D-printed habitat, NASA aims to evaluate certain human health and performance factors ahead of future Mars missions. The crew will undergo realistic resource limitations, equipment failures, communication delays, isolation and confinement, and other stressors, along with simulated high-tempo extravehicular activities. These scenarios allow NASA to make informed trades between risks and interventions for long-duration exploration missions.
In 3D bioprinting, researchers use living cells to create functional tissues and organs. Instead of printing with plastic, they print with living cells. This comes with great challenges. Cells are fragile and wouldn’t survive a regular 3D printing process. That’s why Levato’s team developed a special bio-ink, a mix of living cells and nourishing gels that protect the cells during the printing process.
With the advancements in bio-inks, layer-by-layer 3D bioprinting became possible. But this method is still time-consuming and puts a lot of stress on the cells. Researchers from Utrecht came up with a solution: volumetric bioprinting.
Volumetric bioprinting is faster and gentler on cells. Using cell-friendly laser light, a 3D structure is created all at once. “To build a structure, we project a series of light patterns into a spinning tube filled with light-sensitive gel and cells,” Levato explains. “Where the light beams converge, the material solidifies. This creates a full 3D object in one go, without having to touch the cells.” To do this, it is crucial to know exactly where the cells are in the gel. GRACE now makes that possible.
The existing bottleneck in efficiently miniaturizing components for quantum computers could be eased with the help of 3D printing.
Quantum computers tackle massive computational challenges by harnessing the power of countless tiny parts working seamlessly together. Trapped ion technology, where charged particles like ions are trapped by manipulating the electromagnetic fields, is one such component.
Current microfabrication techniques fall short when it comes to producing the complex electrode structures with optimal ion confinement suitable for quantum operations.