What is 4D Printing?
What are the examples of Use Cases for 4D Printing?
What are the Challenges face in 4D Printing?
Feel free to share your professional or academician’s thoughts.
Dear Han Ping Fung,
Hope that this info will still be helpful to you!
To my rough knowledge about the topic (coming from the reading of online science magazines and not based on research experiences) 4D printing is a dynamic 3D printing, where the "dynamic" stands for time. In fact, the structures being printed are capable of changing their shapes over time. This is because of the functionalities which are built into the materials (smart materials).
These materials get activated by heat, water, current, sound or pressure.
Among the possible material segments, the market of programmable carbon fiber materials is expected to mostly contribute to sales in the overall market.
An example of application of 4D printing is within healthcare: 4D-printed medical implants would be biocompatible parts to be implanted in the body and that will change shape and functionality without external intervention.
Another interesting examples are childcare products that can react to humidity or temperature, and clothing and footwear that will “sense the environment” and react accordingly.
Targeted end user industries for 4D printing technologies are aerospace, automotive, clothing, construction, defense and military, healthcare, and utilities users.
The research report released by MarketsandMarkets on June 2015 says the high cost for research and development of 4D printing will limit this tech to a few key players for the near run, and that stakeholders within the various supply chains of the manufacturing sector will be facing a number of challenges (but I don’t more than this. I'll attach here the link to the webpage where the report can be purchased http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/4d-printing-market-3084180.html).
This piece comes from a merge of the following sources:
http://www.livescience.com/49185-4d-printing-shape-shifting-structures.html
http://3dprint.com/78035/4d-printing-market/
http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/24/welcome-to-the-age-of-4d-printers/
Moreover, I would suggest watching the Ted talk on this. Ted talks are always a nice way to approach to something new!
http://www.ted.com/talks/skylar_tibbits_the_emergence_of_4d_printing
Best wishes
Ilaria
I am going to add my thoughts on that, which I should have added previously.
As I don't have previous experiences in research works with 3D or 4D printing, I will purely fantasize on an application of 4D printing right now. One possible idea might be 4D-printed shoes which are capable to adapt to the shape and size of your foot over time: let's think about kids or marathon runners...I heard that some of them need to change their shoes at a certain point of the race because their feet get puffed up! With respect to this, it would be nice to have a shoe which dynamically creates an healthy and balanced "environment" within it when it gets triggered by specific weather conditions (wet soil, sweltering weather, etc). Ps: this particular behavior might be already under development within the research on wearable technologies from 3D printing: a lot of things that I don't know are happening right now there...I will be following the news up!
Dear Han Ping Fung, please see this web, very interesting review. http://www.selfassemblylab.net/4DPrinting.php
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