British Engineers Build and Fly First Printed Aircraft

By George Gerba
July 29, 2011

• Engineers in the UK have designed, built and flown a model aircraft, the entire structure of which has been printed (including its two-meter wings, control surfaces and access hatches).
• The Southampton University Laser Sintered Aircraft unmanned air vehicle (UAV) was printed layer by layer on an EOS EOSINT P730 nylon laser sintering machine.
• The electric vehicle, the first of its kind to be completely printed, is capable of a top speed of nearly 100 miles per hour.
• “The flexibility of the laser sintering process allows the design team to re-visit historical techniques and ideas that would have been prohibitively expensive using conventional manufacturing,” says University of Southampton professor Jim Scanlon. “This type of structure was initially developed by Barnes Wallis and famously used on the Vickers Wellington bomber which first flew in 1936. This form of structure is very stiff and lightweight, but very complex. If it was manufactured conventionally it would require a large number of individually tailored parts that would have to be bonded or fastened at great expense.”
• “This is a great example of what 3D printers are making possible,” comments ETCentric staffer George Gerba.

British Investigators to Use 3D Laser Technology at Crash Sites

By Rob Scott
July 11, 2011

• BBC News reports that police in the UK are planning to use new laser scanners at the location of serious motor vehicle accidents to create 3D images of the sites and, in turn, clear the roads more quickly for other motorists.
• It is expected that the technology will save the time required to “painstakingly log everything at the scene” and will save the economy hundreds of thousands of pounds each year.
• The 3D laser technology uses a special tripod-mounted scanner that records a 360-degree image of the crash site down to a resolution of less than one millimeter. Each sweep takes about four minutes.
• ETCentric contributor Phil Lelyveld comments: “This technology could be useful for location scouting for 3D shoots, as well as recording positions for later reshoots.”