WHEN MANUFACTURING GOES 3D
Athmika was born with a rare condition. She did not have a sternum (breast bone), which protects the heart, major blood vessels and lungs. She had to be operated upon but it was not an easy surgery. The team of doctors at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi, took a 3D CT scan and developed a simulated 3D model of her chest wall to practise the procedure several times before fixing a 3D-printed titanium implant in her chest.
Welcome to the brave new world of additive manufacturing, popularly known as 3D printing – the making of three-dimensional objects from a digital file. The process involves building an object by laying down successive layers of raw material. Each layer can be seen as a thinly sliced horizontal cross-section of the eventual object. It is the opposite of subtractive manufacturing, which involves cutting out/hollowing out of a piece of metal or plastic. The technology, which took its first steps over three decades ago, is now catching on in India, where companies ranging from Tata Motors and JSW Steel to GE Transportation and tens of start-ups, apart from organisations such as ISRO, are reaping its benefits in the form of
