Researchers at a laboratory in Foshan City, south China's Guangdong Province, have deepened their research on metal 3D printing technology, also known as metal additive manufacturing, to upgrade the traditional materials manufacturing industry.
Metal 3D printing is a laser-based technology that constructs objects layer by layer by fusing metal particles. It employs heat or light energy, such as a laser or electron beam, to melt or bond the metal powder, spreading it over previous layers.
According to a researcher at the Institute of Advanced Additive Manufacturing of Ji Hua Laboratory, 3D printing has a great advantage in fabricating arbitrary shapes without any limitations and has great potential in preparing controllable porous structures.
"In traditional methods of processing, we need to produce these channels first and then weld them at the corresponding points, which can result in tiny welding defect pores in the welding area. However, 3D printing completely avoids the possibility of welding defects because it is integrally formed. Our whole industry is gradually developing in the direction of larger sizes, more lasers, and higher efficiency," said Gao Chaofeng, doctoral student at the Institute of Advanced Additive Manufacturing of Ji Hua Laboratory.
Another researcher at the lab pointed out that they aim to make more progress in new material and key components development in some key areas.
"We aim to solve some of the main difficulties in the industry at present, such as improving the quality and performance of products and reducing costs. In the long run, we strive to develop new materials and future technologies in China, especially in equipment such as key components for engines and aerospace fields," said Bi Yunjie, deputy director of the Institute of Advanced Additive Manufacturing of Ji Hua Laboratory.
Ji Hua Laboratory is one of the first four provincial-level laboratories initiated by the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial Government. Since its establishment more than six years ago, the laboratory has mainly focused on new display equipment, semiconductor equipment and key components, intelligent robots, high-end medical equipment, advanced remote sensing equipment, additive manufacturing equipment, and new materials and devices.
Chinese scientists leverage metal 3D printing to upgrade traditional material manufacturing industry
Shanghai, a leading force for Chinese modernization, is accelerating the pace of building itself into a science and technology innovation center with global influence.
The tech-savvy metropolis is now speeding up the transition from structure building to function strengthening. Taking strengthening the capability of fostering original sci-tech innovations as the main task, it is pursuing both sci-tech innovation and institutional innovation to significantly improve its comprehensive strength in science and technology as well as the overall effects of innovations.
Over the past 10 years since Shanghai began building itself into an international science and technology innovation center, it has reaped fruitful results in sci-tech innovation, which has pushed the metropolis' GDP across the 4-trillion-yuan (about 570 billion U.S. dollars) mark.
In 2023, Shanghai's total research and development expenditure accounted for 4.4 percent of its GDP, and the city's fiscal expenditure on science and technology rose by 36.7 percent to 52.8 billion yuan (about 7.47 billion U.S. dollars).
Driven by science and technology advances, Shanghai's industrial transformation has sped up. The combined scale of the three leading industries of artificial intelligence, integrated circuits, and biomedicine in the city has reached 1.6 trillion yuan (about 226 billion U.S. dollars).
At the National Local Joint Humanoid Robot Innovation Center in Shanghai's Zhangjiang Science City, Qinglong, an open-source general-purpose humanoid robot with a height of 182 centimeters and up to 43 active degrees of freedom, is being trained to pick up oranges.
"After some training, the robot will be able to complete this move by itself when it encounters a similar scenario in the future," said Shi Zhihua, trainer of robot Qinglong.
Thanks to an advanced control software, Qinglong can skillfully perform fast walking, avoid obstacles, go uphill and downhill, and resist impact.
"We plan to build a venue that can simultaneously train 1,000 robots by 2027," Shi said.
The Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF), a third-generation medium-energy synchrotron light source facility with 46 laboratories, has been operating around the clock to serve researchers from around the country, whose experiments cover a wide range of fields such as life sciences, materials science and chemical catalysis.
"We are using the SSRF's light to observe the phase change process of this material when it's heated to 1,100 degrees Celsius," said Song Shuang, a PhD candidate of Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
"Our team is developing materials for the energy sector," said Miao Zhikai, a researcher of Tianjin University.
"We are developing cathode materials for sodium-ion batteries," said Li Guodong, a researcher of Fudan University.
Though the laboratories at the SSRF have been running at full capacity, researchers still have to apply for them months in advance, reflecting the vibrancy of innovation in Shanghai.
Shanghai blazes sci-tech frontiers to boost innovation-driven modernization
