I’m a sucker for an entirely new 3D printing process, and that’s what I walked into when I encountered Fabricsonic last week. Fabrisonic produces a 3D metal printing device that uses ultrasonic welding principles. Basically a high frequency sound is applied to two adjacent materials, which then causes the two materials to bond. The process is quite fascinating as it actually does not involve heat: the metals are not melted. Instead what happens is that the surface oxides on the metal parts are dispersed by the high frequency sound, leaving “raw” metals to touch each other. Local molecular motion causes the two pieces to bond together, as “strong as any weld”, they say.
