Visits to European autofab labs

From: Marshall Burns (Ennex  Corporation)
To: Ian Gibson (University of Hong Kong), Yakov Horenstein (Electon), Allan Lightman (University of Dayton), Jack Simon (Office of Naval Research—Europe), Ralph Wachter (Office of Naval Research), Daniel Whitney (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Cc: RP-ML
Date: Saturday, May 27, 1995
Subject: Visits to European autofab labs
> How about a little summary of the most interesting things you saw
     Okay. This won't be a comprehensive report, but just a few of the highlights of my visits to labs in central Europe doing research on additive automated fabrication.
     (a) Fraunhofer Institutes. This German chain of academic/industrial research laboratories has formed an alliance of seven or eight of its approximately 60 sites to focus on "rapid prototyping." I visited three of the labs in this alliance: IPA in Stuttgart, ICT just outside Karlsruhe, and IPT in Aachen. Each lab concentrates on applying its special strengths to improving RP technology. For example, IPA works primarily on software and control issues, ICT on materials, and IPT on advanced processes. Each site that I visited has at least one fabricator running; some were procured in cooperative R&D arangements with the vendors, others were experimental systems built in the labs. The primary technologies seen were laser curing and laser sintering.
     (b) There is another RP alliance among several institutes of the University of Stuttgart, the Fraunhofer IPA and IAO, and Daimler Benz. This group is focused primarily on management and software issues.
     (c) IKP, Stuttgart. This is a small group of enthusiastic researchers within the University of Stuttgart working on some interesting projects in process analysis and improvements in laser curing and laser sintering.
     (d) KFA, Juelich (near Aachen). This is the largest national lab in Germany. One of its departments is exploiting its expertise in powder processing to explore fabrication applications.
     (e) CNRS, Nancy, France. Jean-Claude Andre is one of the pioneers of additive autofab. He is still going strong, with about 20 students and staff working on new process ideas. His new book on laser curing, called "Stereophotolithographie Laser," has been published in French by Polytechnica.
     (f) Materialise, near Brussels. This small job shop and software developer described some of their recent work in medical applications. In partnership with a major dental supply company, they are using a fabricated master to form a titanium template which is implanted temporarily in a patient's mouth to guide regrowth of attrified jawbone tissue. This then allows for permanent implantation of artificial teeth.
     All in all, lot's of good work going on. We will be seeing many interesting results over the next few years.