EADS' Airbike the world's first printed bike


3D printing is a powerful tool, but EAD's AirBike is taking it to the next level. Creating layer by layer to materialize a functional bike made up of a combination of compacted powdered metal, nylon and carbon reinforced plastics is what Additive Layer Manufacturing (ALM - the manufacturing process) is all about.

The bike is first designed on a computer, then built by Laser Sintering – a fusing method – creating thousands of layers until the object solidifies into a unified structure. In this case, EAD isn't trying to produce usable bicycles, but rather showing off the working and bending of materials at a molecular level to create something strong and efficiently based on effectively limitless computer creations.

[Source: Engadget]

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