ASME •
May 3, 2022
There is considerable R&D focus on how to make parts bigger with additive manufacturing or 3D printing. At the same time, engineers are designing smaller and more complex products, especially in the medical-device and electronics fields. This trend toward miniaturization also requires that the components and assemblies inside these products are also smaller, and often more complex. Smaller parts at the micro-scale are difficult to prototype with conventional manufacturing methods, such as injection molding and CNC machining, and take more time and money.