UMaine Composites Center received three Guinness World Records related to having the world’s largest 3D printer.
University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center received the awards on on Oct. 10, 2019 for:
world’s largest prototype polymer 3D printer (over 12,000 square feet)
world’s largest solid 3D-printed object
world’s largest 3D-printed BOAT
The event culminated with the world’s largest 25-foot, 5,000-pound 3D-printed boat, named 3Dirigo, being tested in the Alfond W2 Ocean Engineering Laboratory, an offshore model testing facility equipped with a high-performance wind machine over a multidirectional wave basin.
The 25-foot patrol boat with a hull form developed by Navatek, a leader in ship design and a UMaine Composites Center industrial partner, was printed in just 72 hours!
The new 3D printer is designed to print objects as long as 100 feet by 22 feet wide by 10 feet high, and can print at 500 pounds per hour.
This signifies a big advance for rapid prototyping and next-generation, large-scale additive manufacturing, especially with biobased thermoplastics.
A $20 million dollar research collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the U.S. Department of Energy’s largest science and energy laboratory, will support fundamental research in key technical areas in large-scale, biobased additive manufacturing.
UMaine also showcased a 3D-printed, 12-foot-long U.S. Army communications shelter.
The new printer will support programs with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC) Soldier Center and its mission to develop rapidly deployable shelter systems for soldiers.
Working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the 3D printer will further advance UMaine’s groundbreaking innovations in rapidly deployable, low-logistics infrastructure systems.
That includes a 5,000-pound, 21-foot-long 3D-printed mold for a new 76-foot-long composites bridge girder.
The girder has been licensed to a UMaine spinoff company, Advanced Infrastructure Technology, that is in the process of fabricating girders for a bridge to be constructed in Hampden, Maine in summer 2020.
Fun Fact:
Maine is the most forested state in the USA.
UMaine info on 3D Boat
GWR 3D Printed Boat
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/406775-largest-3d-printed-boat
