Top TechTop Tech #13: Printed cars, energy-making tires, and liquid metal
Promising products and interesting innovations
In today’s report:
• Printing plastic cars
• Tires generate electricity from friction
• Liquid metal shifts shape, moves, and pumps
Printing plastic cars
There’s been plenty of activity in the new manufacturing method dubbed 3D printing, from toys and chotskies to tools and even foodstuffs— but a ready-to-run car? Yes, that’s on its way as well.
Phoenix-based Local Motors made its Strati vehicle in front of a live audience at a car show — well, over the course of acouple of days, that is. As Popular Science reports here, the company built a “micro-factory” with a 3D printer and CNC machine on the show floor, and then let attendees test-drive the machine.
And it’s not all made from scratch: “Everything on the car that could be integrated into a single material piece has been printed. This includes the chassis/frame, exterior body, and some interior features. The mechanical components of the vehicle, like battery, motors, wiring, and suspension, are sourced from Renault’s Twizy, an electric powered city car,” the company says. However, the “brand-new process disrupts the manufacturing status quo, changes the consumer experience and proves that a car can be born in an entirely different way.” Local Motors adds that it was the first developer :to eliminate a car’s frame and integrate all exterior and interior features into a drastically part reduced automotive creation.”
The “Big Area Additive Manufacturing” machine deposits 40 pounds per hour of carbon fiber-reinforced ABS plastic. The Strati took 44 hours to print. “The goal for the next stage of research and development is to speed up the print rate while maintaining quality,” the company says. “We intend to cut the print process to 24 hours.” Long term, Local Motors says that “once the 3D-printed car is cleared by U.S. vehicle rules and regulations, it will be drivable on public roads; our goal is to complete this in 2015.”
Popular Science also reports on German engineering firm EDAG and its 3D-printed “Light Cocoon” concept car here.
Tires generate electricity from friction
Goodyear is developing tires that utilize friction heat to provide automotive electricity.
Aimed at electric cars, the tires would feed a car’s batteries, Gizmodo reports. “At the core of the concept is a layer of piezoelectric material underneath the rubber of the tire.”
There’s a video from Goodyear here.
Liquid metal shifts shape, moves, and pumps
A self-powered liquid metal motor might deliver nano-sized transport in the near future.
New Scientist reports that Beijing-based University researchers combined a drop of gallium metal alloy with indium and tin — and when placed in sodium hydroxide and contacted with a flake of aluminum “it moves around for about an hour.” It can travel in a straight line, run around the outside of a circular dish, or squeeze through complex shapes.
