Standards Impact

Additive Manufacturing: Science Fiction vs. Reality

• ASTM International • Season 2 • Episode 9

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3D printing organs. Printing replacement parts in space. Learn how science fiction is becoming reality and discover how additive manufacturing plays a transformative role in the aerospace and biomedical fields.  

Join host Dave Walsh for an in-depth discussion of additive manufacturing. With guests: Brent Stucker, chief engineer for North America at Nikon SLM Solutions and chief technology strategist with Wohlers Associates; and Christian Seidel, professor at Munich University of Applied Sciences, and strategic implementation consultant with Wohlers Associates.

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Dave Walsh (00:13):

Welcome to Standards Impact ASTM's official podcast from 3D printed organs to printing replacement parts during missions in space 3D printing is having a transformative impact. This impact is being seen in the world in general, but in the fields of aerospace and biomedical in particular. I'm your host, Dave Walsh, Editor-in-Chief of Standardization News, and I'm joined by two leading additive manufacturing experts today. Christian Seidel, strategic implementation consultant with Wallers Associates and Brent Stucker, chief engineer at Nikon, SLM Solutions. So Christian, with the recent story about the astronauts stranded in space making news, and thankfully they're on their way to being rescued now the idea of safety in the field of aerospace has come to the forefront. What role do you think 3D printing could play in the production of things like replacement parks and repairs in space? Could it have helped and will it help in the future in situations like that?

Christian Seidel (01:07):

That's a great question. Thank you for that. Actually. I think additive and effect can contribute quite a lot to spare parts, uh, supply in space because additive manufacturing technologies can be considered tool free. So obviously there is a kind of a tool if you consider laser-based processes, for instance, there is a laser and the laser can be considered a tool, but it's not like if you need a eight millimeter hole, you have to have an eight millimeter drill, otherwise you can't produce the hole. This is not true for additive manufacturing technologies. They're quite flexible in terms of the, uh, geometries they can produce, and that makes it a great tool for space where you have a hard time getting a drill in the right diameter if you don't have it in space already. And that's where additive manufacturing really has its strength and can contribute to that. But obviously there are also some downsides of AM technologies, so they're not meant to be high precision technologies. So whenever you have high tolerances parts that might fail in space, and the these parts do have high tolerances, you will have a hard time printing them. In this case is you need manufacturing process chains such as on earth, right? So it's a similar if you produce these parts on earth or in space and you can't do it with only a single machine that's, uh, up to date not possible.

Dave Walsh (02:26):

Yeah. And so what you just discussed is a situation where you're printing possibly replacement parts or doing repairs on the fly in space during the mission. But 3D printing in aerospace is, is part of a bigger hole. There are other applications of 3D printing in aerospace, and they don't always involve repairs in space. What other applications of 3D printing are there for the aerospace field? Where else can it come into play in either the design, the launch, the, the whole picture of aerospace?

Christian Seidel (02:54):

Well, in aerospace, aerospace is one of the driver industries for additive manufacturing, and it has always been because when you need to an airplane, parts should be light because you always have to bring them up into the air. So you benefit from lightweight design more than other industries do, and that's why these technologies have always been considered in the aerospace industry. At the same time, we all don't want to be on a flight where we don't feel comfortable with the parts that keep the airplane together. So it needs to be considered what is the safety requirement of a specific part and how reliable can it be produced by means of additive manufacturing? So in theory, we have a high potential because lightweight is a, a core criteria for aerospace. Um, for instance, lightweight. There will be other examples as well. But at the same time, we need to also consider the safety requirements and ensure the quality, and this is up to date a bit of a challenge.

(03:51):

We have overcome these challenges for many parts in aerospace, but for the very critical ones, we're still in the process of convincing the authorities that am technologies have the potential to supply also these parts. And there is a tremendous potential once we've accomplished that because whenever there's a heat affected part or something, we can really increase the performance of these parts by applying, for instance, conformer cooling channels, thereby reducing the thermal load on a specific structural part. And in doing so, we can often increase the performance. So for aerospace applications, there's also bright future for additive manufacturing.

Dave Walsh (04:29):

And of course, another focus of this podcast is the biomedical field, and that's an area where Brent has some expertise in particular. And what I wanted to ask Brent, is that there's a sort of a science fiction narrative circulating in the media and the world of pop culture around 3D printing and biomedical, which is that someday doctors and surgeons may just print organs and tissues right in the operating theater, and that this will become routine. That's probably not quite true. So to set the record straight, I mean, how far are we from that day? And is will it ever actually be a reality?

Brent Stucker (04:59):

Yeah, that's a great question. And will it ever be a reality? Um, maybe, but not in the way we see it in the science fiction movies where we're really at with biomedical implant researches, we're probably farther than most people actually think we're, because today what we can do is we can take a patient's or a person's stem cells, extract it from their body, and then we can take those and we can differentiate those, we can reproduce them and differentiate those into different types of tissue, and then we can print a scaffold with 3D printing that is able to then be infused with this tissue that we just grew from that person's own body that we had extracted from them. And so the issue here is now we can take a bunch of tissue, we can grow it, we can put it in the right shape, but how do we turn that shape into a living organ?

(05:51):

Let's say it's a heart, now it's got a beat or it's a lung, now it's oxygen and carbon dioxide. And we're finding that we're getting there, we're starting to do that with animal trials. Um, and in fact, I think we'll probably be there within the next, say five to 10 years in human trials where we could actually extract someone's own tissue, differentiate it, um, put it into a scaffold or a three dimensional shape and put it back in their body as a, as a replacement organ. But that's not the same as just sitting in an operating table and having them do something inside your chest. It takes time. You've gotta, you've gotta extract some tissue from the person. You've got to grow that in a lab, and then you've got to infuse that into a shape. Uh, you've also have to build that shape, of course, using 3D printing. So, so the way that science fiction is showing it today is really not how the science lines up. But nevertheless, I believe the future is where we won't have to wait for an organ donor to die, or a person to give up an extra kidney to keep someone alive who needs a replacement organ. I think we'll be, hopefully in my lifetime, but for sure in my children's lifetime where we're able to print those replacement organs and completely eliminate the need for someone to give up their own organ to keep another person alive.

Dave Walsh (07:13):

You mentioned the fact that we're probably closer than many people think to, to a sort of a science fiction situation. And I know there are certain applications that are currently being used in the biomedical field with regard to 3D printing. And so maybe you could touch on some of the, the more realistic scenarios that people can look to, um, like aspirationally and maybe even things that are being done today. I know 3D printed valves are being used in, in the human body, and some types of tissues are being used for healing and burns, things like that. So what are some of the realistic advances that 3D printing can promise and maybe what are some of the the ones that are currently available?

Brent Stucker (07:47):

Yeah, that's a great question because if we think about the applications in the medical field, the ones that are highly successful today being used in, um, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of people's lives to improve their lives are areas where we're not creating living tissue. We're actually just creating complex three dimensional objects that we use to, to aid a person. Um, those could be everything from hearing aids that are custom printed, so they're exactly fit your ear to things like dental, um, uh, aligners to help you correct your teeth. But if you think about the inside of the body today, how are we using 3D printing? Well, there's the idea of surgical guides that are being used by surgeons to plan the surgery. In fact, there's entire companies that are out there that get CT scans, MRI scans and then help the surgeon design the surgery by making 3D printed guides to show them where to cut and what to do, and how to maybe separate this tissue, and then where do we cut the bone?

(08:50):

And all of these things, those are ways improving the outcomes of surgery. But in addition to that, we're still, we're implanting parts made by 3D printing into humans. The examples are like metal implants where you're creating a portion of a joint that you need, or you're maybe making a spinal implant to correct a spinal issue, or you're making a peak implant that you're using to cover, say, where you had trauma in a car accident and your head is fractured, and so some of the bone might die and leave a gap of covering over your brain. We can 3D print a plastic part that can go underneath the skin, but between the skin and the brain and be that protective covering that your head needs. So you're safe in case somebody bumps into you or in case you, you accidentally hit your head on the wall or something like that, right? So, so there's all kinds of ways that 3D printing is being used to improve people's lives in addition to that future potential of printing and living tissue.

Dave Walsh (09:53):

So aerospace and biomedical are two of the hottest applications of 3D printing and additive manufacturing in, in the world today. And one organization, one institution that's playing a large role in advancing both of them is, uh, ASTMs Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence and otherwise known as the AM MCOE. And you're both members of it. So I thought maybe I'd start with Christian and just ask, what is the role of the AM MCOE in the field of aerospace in particular? Um, what, what kind of innovations are they fostering? How are they helping go from research to standards and faster time, that sort of thing?

Christian Seidel (10:28):

Sure. I mean, uh, there are multiple ways to support the industry or communities within the industry, such as the aerospace community, more or less. Um, the approach is based on five pillars, right? So we do have the r and d pillar. If, if there is a knowledge gap and you need research, um, uh, to actually be able to create a standard that you might want to use, um, there is a support for r and d activities that really target a standard as a deliverable of an RD activity that can predominantly also support, um, aerospace, uh, progress. Um, and if you think about the categorization of parts, for instance, uh, I I told you earlier that, uh, it's a different, it's a different story if you print a simple aerospace part or if you want to produce a part that actually has some safety relevance, and for that reason, it needs a classification. So our pillar on standardization can provide guidance on that and can come up with categories. So you can, you are able to categorize your parts and you will have a, a transparency, um, what part is safety critical and what is not. So safety critical, and you can derive from that classification can derive the batches for quality assurance in order to be also cost effective, um, in your production.

Brent Stucker (11:47):

Yeah, when you think about fields where human life is impacted, if something goes wrong, then standards become absolutely critical because by bringing together the world's best experts at the intersection of additive manufacturing and biomedical, we can enable the best minds to say, Hey, we all agree that this is a safe procedure. We all agree that this is an unsafe procedure. Let's let's start to build a standard around that consensus. And that way, when new people come into the industry, they're less likely to make mistakes. They're, they're more, uh, and they're more likely to be successful commercially. So not only does it protect human life, but it actually makes it easier for industry to flourish. And so those are the sort of things that, you know, standardization in general do. But the AM MCOE in specific is more proactive than just standing back and saying, well, we hope that the bright people get together. We're actively trying to bring together the right parties to share information, to do research as Christian was saying, and then to share data in a way that we can write meaningful standards that move the industry forward.

Christian Seidel (13:01):

Yeah, I, I can maybe add on that, uh, that also, um, this consortium that, that Brent mentioned in his last statement is very important because at the beginning of the AIM industry, there was not a lot of willingness to share materials data, but this is crucial to progress together, right? So we set up a consortium that, uh, provides users with a platform to actually share the materials data to accelerate progress in that field. And two more pillars, so to say, are the, uh, standardization certification efforts. So for both, um, applications like critical applications such as aerospace, medical and all that, right? You need to ensure that the production sites, um, comply with certain set of standards and, um, a quality level, so to say. And this is also, um, a offer that we can provide to support with these efforts, um, alongside education and training to be sure you have the right staff to keep the machines up and running.

Dave Walsh (13:58):

You've both kind of summed up the role of the A-M-C-O-E, and it's, it's sort of a big picture role where it's, it's convening and it's, it's promoting research and innovation. Um, but you also both touched on the specific role of standards, and that's what A STM is the most known for, obviously. I wondered if you could, you could comment on the role that standards will play in the advancement of additive manufacturing technologies, both in aerospace and the biomedical fields, and what would be the most impactful standards that you see currently in development?

Brent Stucker (14:28):

Well, if I think about the history of standards, it might be helpful to go back in history a little bit before talking about the future, because if we go back about, um, well to 2008 when we started talking to a STM as an industry and saying, we need a standards community in additive manufacturing and A STM could provide the platform for the additive manufacturing community to make standards. Where were we at back then? Well, everybody called everything by different names. We had, you know, every inventor came up with some name and then they would trademark it, and then the next company would trademark another one. And it was so confusing because, uh, I was a professor at the time, even to teach students how to learn about this area of additive manufacturing. We had to give them 10 or 20 different names for each type of machine because everybody would call it different things.

(15:20):

And that was really hindering research. It was really hindering the ability of companies to even, um, be found as an operator who, or as a manufacturer who could sell certain technology or services. So just getting everybody in the world to agree upon it on names of this technology is called this, and that technology is called that and, and to call our industry additive manufacturing. Whereas at the time there was about a dozen different things people even called our industry. So if you then fast forward to the present, nowadays, anytime anybody wants to procure a machine or buy a service, they, they can use the S-T-M-I-S-O international standards that we've, we have. And, and one of the core things that made a STM so successful, which I just alluded to, is that we joined with ISO, we have a joint standards making community. And so no matter what we do, people are not hesitant to use the standard because there's not competing standards between A STM and ISO. It's the same standard. And so that's another unique thing about our industry

Christian Seidel (16:27):

That's very important aspects. Uh, I can basically only add that the standards will be the fundamental of progress in both of these industries that you mentioned, but also beyond if there is no standard that's just too much effort, um, for discussions and, you know, case by case, um, discussions on how to proceed. Uh, but if you have a look at the standardization on a high level, I see more or less three phases that we can distinguish. The first one was the kind of setting up the structures, getting the PSDO, what it's called, the, um, partner standards development organization agreement in place between ICE and A SDM. So that was really the first phase, get everyone aboard and all that. And then there was a second phase in which we developed, um, the standards. So up to date, you have more than a hundred industry standards available on the market.

(17:15):

Um, they cover a wide range of, uh, of, of fields like design terminology, uh, post-processing process itself, and a lot more. So this was the second phase, get standards out there in order to enable the certification for critical applications and to make a, a, a benefit to the industry in general to ease business. And I, I foresee a third phase where we will have to improve these standards that have been published maybe three or four years ago. So every five years you want to look at a standard if it's still relevant. And obviously if you have to develop a set of standards from scratch, though we acknowledged every standard from adjacent competence fields that was relevant for additive manufacturing, you have a hard time finding a consensus in a fast moving industry for that reason. Um, sometimes the standards for additive manufacturing, they are not as specific as some users want them to be. So in this third phase that I just described, we will have to update the standards and improve the quality besides adding new standards that are currently missing,

Dave Walsh (18:26):

We're talking about the role of standards and how standards will help advance the marketplace and, and streamline these technologies. So it kind of brings up the natural question. Assuming all goes to plan, the right standards are developed, they help the market advance. Where do you see respectively the fields of aerospace and, and the biomedical field going in the next maybe 30 or 40 years? Will we see a situation where a crippling repair today will just be a matter of printing a new widget and moving on with the space mission, will we see a situation where a heart transplant is just as easy as pressing a button on a 3D printer? How do you see that all playing out sometime in the future?

Brent Stucker (19:06):

I think in the next 30 years or so, we'll be amazed at how far we've come and I think we can, we can look back 20 years and say, uh, in some of these areas. Like I remember I was at a conference with Elon Musk before Elon Musk was even a, a household name where he was talking about his vision for SpaceX that was less than 20 years ago, um, where there wasn't a company that was actually making launch vehicles. It was just an idea where he, he had money, he had an idea, but no SpaceX Rockets existed. Now, fast forward 20 years later, what they've done is made a brand new space industry, a commercial space industry that never existed before in less than 20 years. Strictly because we have additive manufacturing technology, you know, we, we can now make new rocket engines, we can make new capabilities, we can dramatically improve the performance of these rockets by the fact that additive manufacturing is being used.

(20:10):

So if we look at what happened in 20 years from no new space industry to, you know, a whole bunch of companies in that area, whether that's SpaceX or Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic or, uh, the list goes on and on relativity space, all of these could not exist and do what they do without 3D printing. And so where's it gonna go next? I think we're gonna see a whole bunch of new commercial, um, aerospace companies where you're gonna see new types of airplanes for just com regular commercial space flight, as well as things like bringing the cost down where people go to space as a tourist and not have to be a billionaire to afford doing that. Um, I think those are the sort of things we're gonna see in the next, you know, 30 years due to additive manufacturing in the aerospace industry.

Christian Seidel (21:00):

Yeah, these were great specific examples. I cannot agree more, right? Um, on a more generic level, it's also interesting. We have currently an estimate market size of 20 billion. Some say it's 10 billion. So there is a always a kind of a range of values that you will find for industry size estimation that's completely natural, right? But this equals roundabout oh 0.1% of the, uh, total amount of the manufacturing industry as a whole oh 0.1%. And I do not know any person that says this is the end, right? So everyone agrees basically that an oh point something percent is not enough. It does not reflect the potential that additive manufacturing has. So we will not end up printing screws on a large scale that that's a commodity that we will produce with different manufacturing technologies. Um, but additive manufacturing has certainly a potential to reach single digit, um, share on the total manufacturing market.

(21:59):

And this means that we have to 10 to 50 fold kind of, um, the industry size. And that's more or less, I think your 30 years timeframe is perfect to, to be able to accomplish that. And it won't look like every industry has a one to 5% share. There will be applications, particularly in aerospace that I see will benefit more from additive manufacturing. There was once a CEO of an error engine company saying that he's, he foresees 30% of future parts in future error engine generations will be produced by means of additive manufacturing. But certainly this product is a very good one for additive manufacturing and it might be different for other parts and products.

Brent Stucker (22:44):

I was agreeing, I know that, that people listening can't see me nodding my head, but yeah, absolutely. I was agreeing with Christian there and I think just to emphasize, you know, going from 0.1% of, of the size of industry up to, you know, I think we should tip 10 x that for sure to at least 1%, but I expect in 30 to 50 years to be 10% of global manufacturing because I think what you're going to see, and that's a hundred x fold of growth in the industry, what you're gonna start seeing then is that people just, it's ubiquitous just in the same way like little plastic parts around you are made using things like injection molding or machining. Your whole life is going to be impacted by additive manufacturing, not just in aerospace, not just in replacement organs, but frankly in your phones, in your computers, in your car, um, in, in your kitchen.

(23:36):

More and more functionality is going to be added. That helps us use energy more effectively, <laugh> that helps us, you know, have less of an impact on the world negatively and a better positive impact on human flourishing. So I, I really think that this is an amazing area to still get involved with. It's been a, I've been in this industry for 30 years and uh, it's opened up so many opportunities to impact the world for good by being involved in this industry. And I think the next 30 to 50 years is just gonna open up even more potential for people to make the impact for good on human flourishing.

Christian Seidel (24:17):

Absolutely, Brent. And I mean, what is also interesting, our society gets older and older, right? And I know many examples where additive manufacturing, uh, demonstrated the potential to reduce manual labor. So I really wonder how in five to 10 years some people will start using additive manufacturing because it will lead to a reduction in manual labor needs because it simply won't have the manual labor available. But this is also interesting. I mean, we don't know how powerful this effect might be, but it's certainly interesting to observe.

Dave Walsh (24:49):

So both of you touched on the role of younger engineers and the future. We're talking about the next 30 to 40 years in your fields, and an important part of A STM is our early career professionals and our students. So I wondered, what would you say to a student or early career professional who's considering joining A STM in general and possibly becoming part of your, uh, committee on additive manufacturing technologies? F 42?

Christian Seidel (25:12):

I would strongly recommend to sign up, that's for sure. Um, just this February, another PhD student started in my laboratory and the first thing I said to him was, pick a voluntary position, a committee where you want to join and where you want to engage, because I'm convinced that, um, it is so, uh, fruitful for both parties to have young engineers, um, contributing to the committees because the talents will learn fast because they will see what are the really relevant questions, uh, because these are the, the ones being discussed in these committees on a very high level, on an international level. And it's just a great platform to learn and grow. But not only, uh, from the technical aspect, I would also say that the networking is invaluable. Um, and, and that's why I highly recommend everyone who's really interested in the industry to get involved, um, and to make a good benefit to both the committee, but also for your own career in, uh, contributing to standard development.

Brent Stucker (26:11):

Yeah, I totally agree. And I think that getting involved in standards is something that we don't tell our students enough about when they're going through their educational career. Um, I was a professor for 20 years and it rarely came up in discussions amongst faculty in various courses. And so my recommendation would be, um, even though you haven't maybe heard about it, it is an amazing way to very quickly learn about what are the real pain points in my industry? Like how can I make a difference? 'cause when you get together to discuss standards, you're really getting to the core aspect of how do I turn some cool technology into something that actually makes a difference in the world and that can be produced and certified and used. And so not only can you have a big impact, but as Christian mentioned, you're also becoming a member of a collection of people who are going somewhere and doing something together.

(27:13):

And I think that's when your professional career starts to feel really valuable. As you're saying, I'm part of a bigger community that's making an impact on the world, not just in my own company or maybe I'm helping my company be successful, but I'm actually helping an entire industry. Um, whether that industry is additive manufacturing or whether you're using additive manufacturing in biomedical or aerospace or automotive or energy production, it doesn't matter. What you're doing is you're helping an industry thrive, which then impacts the whole world. And so, um, it's amazing how standards sit at the fulcrum or at the connection point between all of those things.

Dave Walsh (27:55):

Well, this has been a great discussion. I think our listeners are going to get a lot out of it, but we are getting to the end of our time. So, uh, Brent and Christian, I just wanted to thank you for being with us today and making some time.

Christian Seidel (28:07):

Thank you. Thank you so much for an invitation.

Dave Walsh (28:14):

If you wanna learn more about any of the standards discussed in this episode, visit astm.org for all the latest. And if you enjoyed the show, remember to like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. I'm Dave Walsh, and this has been Standards Impact presented by A STM International.