Innovations in 3D Printing 3.0

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue follows the publication of the first editions on “Innovations in 3D Printing”, which presented 9 high-quality papers.

Recently, 3D printing has been growing aggressively, and diverse thought leaders agree that additive manufacturing (AM) technology will provide a new industrial revolution, fundamentally changing the way products are made. Innovation in the 3D printing intellectual space is observed to be a gold rush for 3D printing-related patents throughout the globe [1]. In addition, the open-source, self-replicating rapid prototyper (RepRap) project has created a tidal wave of innovation from hundreds of developers working together over the web. This has resulted in radically reduced costs of 3D printers, rapid prototyping and low-volume production, and has popularized the idea of 3D printing with dozens of new companies forming. Conventional patenting and production, as well as the mining of expired or abandoned patents [2] or direct open-source innovation, have all combined to provide a new approach to the manufacture of end-use products: distributed manufacturing [3], where raw material (filament, powder, liquid, or sheets) is directly transformed into objects from digital 3D design files (millions of which are freely shared on the web). Thus, 3D printing allows for the efficient manufacture of geometrically and functionally complex products within a single process step, which provides enormous opportunities for more efficient product design, custom products and rapid innovation in the product cycle. Additionally, 3D printing holds out the potential for advances in global value chains [4] as well as manufacturing sustainability, including reduced energy consumption, increased material efficiency, localized production (even in one's own home), increased opportunities for repair and life cycle upgrading. All of these opportunities will only be realized with continued invention and innovation. That is why I invite you to submit an article to Inventions for this Special Issue on “Innovations in 3D Printing 3.0”. Inventions is open access and all papers will be readable by everyone, free of charge.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:

• Innovation to reduce 3D printing time, materials, energy use, environmental impact, cost or complexity;
• Innovative 3D printer software (firmware, controller, slicers, CAD, web interfaces, quality control, monitoring and integration);
• Innovative 3D printer hardware;
• Innovative processing techniques that enable conventional 3D printing (FFF/FDM, SLS, SLA, DLP, SLM, EBM, BJ, LOM, etc.), as well as those processes beyond the common techniques;
• Innovative 3D printing materials and multimaterial printing;
• Innovation that would lead to volumetric 3D printing rather than printing layer-by-layer;
• Innovative 3D printing at different scales (nano- to building-sized);
• Impact of innovation from open-source communities (e.g., the RepRap project);
• Innovative open-source business models applied to 3D printing;
• Innovations to reduce costs of 3D printers;
• Innovations to encourage distributed manufacturing;
• Innovative consumer applications that can be 3D printed at home;
• Innovative intellectual property approaches to 3D printing and distributed manufacturing.

Prof. Dr. Joshua M. Pearce
Guest Editor

References

[1] Wee, H. The “gold rush” for 3-D printing patents. CNBC. 2013. http://www.cnbc.com/id/100942655. 

[2] Nilsiam, Y., Pearce, J.M. Open Source Database and Website to Provide Free and Open Access to Inactive US Patents in the Public Domain. Inventions 2016, 1, 24.

[3] Wittbrodt, B., et al. Life-cycle economic analysis of distributed manufacturing with open-source 3-D printers. Mechatronics 2013, 23, 713–726.

[4] Laplume, A.O., et al. Global value chains from a 3D printing perspective. Journal of International Business Studies 2016, 47, 595–609.

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Inventions is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.