A study on 3D printing materials in product design and art area

Building materials layers upon layers to produce a desired product, 3D printing, so called the ‘Third Industrial Revolution’, is expected to bring significant changes throughout the industry besides being an innovation in the manufacturing technology. A 3D printer produces a product by using additive manufacturing, a process to stack lay by lay according to spraying of powder or liquid materials to its 2D cross-section by a digitalized 3D product design. Even though 3D printing technology is broadly used in product design area in addition to industry, the 3D printing materials are not known very much. In this study, the classification of 3D printing materials that are recently used in the arts are discussed with the respective properties except for the bio-materials. Metals, plastics such as PLA, ABS and nylon, and nanomarterials such as carbon nano tube, graphene are discussed as 3D printing materials. By the discussion of the unique properties of those 3D printing materials, artists and product designers will be understand the materials and possibly combine the discussed materials to find new 3D printing materials.