The elves at General Electric Co. are tinkering again this season, decorating a Christmas tree with ornaments to showcase the Fairfield industrial conglomerate’s three-dimensional printing technology.
Scientists at GE Global Research in Niskayuna, N.Y., an Albany suburb, used high-tech manufacturing to fabricate tree decorations to ring in the holiday season using the company’s additive manufacturing techniques.
Additive manufacturing, or 3-D printing, is the practice of building up material to directly form a product rather than by traditional methods such as forging, casting or machining material away.
For GE and customers, it is providing new degrees of product design freedom and the opportunity to reduce the time, cost and use of materials that go into making products, said Prabhjot Singh, manager of GE’s Additive Manufacturing Lab.
GE says it already is producing intricately designed parts and components for aircraft engines using additive technologies and has an innovative program in healthcare to simplify and reduce the cost of how ultrasound probes are made.
To see the actual printing of an ornament, go to Global Research’s You Tube channel.
