Here at 3D Rapid Print, one of the fastest growing 3D Printing companies in the Thames Valley, we like to keep abreast of the latest innovations in 3D printing.
Circa October 2018, car manufacture Volvo of Torslanda, Sweden; self-proclaimed “unique studio led by designer Alex Goad” Reef Design Lab; the Sydney Institute of Marine Science (SIMS), and the North Sydney Council collaborated to 3D print a concrete and recycled-plastic-fibre-reinforced mould, from which fifty special tiles for a living seawall at North Sydney Harbour, Australia. The tiles were installed along an existing seawall structure and were designed to mimic the structure of the roots of mangrove trees. More than half Sydney Harbour’s shoreline is already equipped with seawalls.
The tiles were textured to mimic the geometry of oyster shells; seawalls are usually built completely flat without anything organisms can avail themselves of to colonize. The tiles will remain in the sea for at least the next 20 years to improve the surrounding area’s biodiversity and water quality. The project will be monitored by specialists like Melanie Bishop, who is an associate professor of Macquarie University and one of Australia’s main researchers of living seawalls; she is also experimenting with how the principle can be applied to restructuring already existing seawalls.
Also circa October 2018, 108 hexagonally-shaped and so-called “habitat tiles”, which were developed by SIMS and Reef Design Lab, were used in an experiment on a seawall in Sawmillers Reserve, which is also in North Sydney. Another advocate of marine sustainability is Australian entrepreneur Darren Lomman, who established the GreenBatch project circa September 2017; this is working establish a system to reprocess plastic bottles into 3D printing filament. Circa November 2016, multinational corporation Adidas of Herzogenaurach, Germany did an albeit limited public release of circa 7,000 pairs of 3D printed sneakers made from recycled ocean waste. Circa September 2015, the Woodbury Shellfish Company unveiled a 3D printed ceramic structure they had developed to help restore New England’s oyster reefs, as part of their ongoing Blue W Labs project.
The World Wildlife Funds’s last Living Planet Report of 2018 proclaimed that the Earth is estimated to have lost circa half of its shallow water corals in the last 30 years. This has prompted increasing numbers of businesses to collaborate with design engineers and non-governmental organisations to try to prevent further damage.
3D printing is an amazing tool. It can grow your small business or start a mini revolution in an industry. Explore what it can do for you when you contact us today.
Disclaimer: Featured image of “Seawallventnor” has been released into the public domain by its author, Oikos-team at English Wikipedia. This applies worldwide. In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so: Oikos-team grants anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.
Recent Comments