HP Innovation Journal Issue 09: Spring 2018 | Page 12

G R OW T H I N A WO R L D O F R E S O U R C E CO N S T R A I N T S As it does so, it is moving beyond healthcare and agriculture to new industries such as manufacturing. It is reinventing how we design, source materials and fabricate products. Like any production shift, the move of biology into the manufac- turing sphere is likely to happen in stages. First with bio-inspired materi- als, then with bio-assisted processes, and eventually across value chains. We are already starting to see the acceleration of bio-inspired materials 4 entering production. From leather grown in a lab to synthetic silk made 5 from spider DNA , to self-healing 6 concrete , the possibilities are end- less when you combine the power of nature and technology for new and replacement materials. Nature-Inspired Fabrication In a resource-constrained future, we may need to find alternative materials to supplement or replace what we use to make products. This could mean that factories of the future will lever- age processes that use self-assembly, self-organization and bio-inspired materials to produce new products. Until now most of our product manufacturing has relied on subtrac- tive and replicative fabrication. What this means is that we would take a piece of material, and we would shave off some of that material to make the part in the shape we wanted. That is subtractive manufacturing. We started this type of manufacturing at the dawn of human history, pick- ing up rocks, and chipping them into tools. Eventually, we began to pay attention to what kinds of rocks we chose and selected particular kinds of 12 rocks based on their characteristics. We then started melting down some of these rocks and mixing them with other rocks and pouring them into molds we carved out—leading us to replicative manufacturing. Now we spend more time focusing on the detail of materials properties and science we are actually using to make fabrication and manufactur- ing more efficient and to increase throughput. As we do this, we are inspired by nature to create parts with varying material customization and personalization. In nature, for example, the organization of cellu- lose fibers in the branch of a tree give the tree branch flexibility and yield. These properties are substantially different from the material in the trunk of the same tree. It’s the same wood but their mechanical properties are different based on the function of that region of the wood. We are moving into a world where instead of removing material, we add details needed by modifying the material rather than assembling another part. This is called additive manu- facturing, an area HP is helping to pioneer and advance with its Jet Fusion technology. With this tech- nology, we can control material properties. HP Jet Fusion can change the material’s color, but also has the potential to control other fundamental physical proper- ties—mechanical strength, texture, elasticity, electrical and thermal con- ductivity, index of refraction, opacity, etc. So, as an example, a manufac- tured part can have durable, hard surfaces with a low friction coefficient where contact and wear will occur, and a differing index of refraction in another area, forming a lens. But what if we could add more and more structural and functional complexity to materials? What kind of valuable parts and products could we produce? Nature again provides the clue. Take, for example, the leaves on a lotus plant: delicate but constantly exposed to the elements, the leaves somehow always stay clean. How is that possi- ble? It turns out those delicate leaves are composed of nanostructures that make the leaf’s surface superhydropho- bic, meaning as the drops of water roll off the surface, they roll the dirt parti- cles away with them. What if we could impart those same nanostructures into materials we fabricate? With that level of con- trol, we can create materials that are resilient, with higher capacity and capabilities. The possibilities are end- less, as in nature. Reimagining the Supply Chain In the next several years we’ll start to see BioConvergence enter the supply chain, replacing point processes. This will create radical shifts in pro- cesses that support production and the equipment and software that run those processes. We are already starting to see some of this reinvention occur. For instance, BioFabUSA, started by Dean Kamen, one of the world’s most prolific healthcare inventors and entrepreneurs, and the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Insti- tute, aim to make practical large-scale manufacturing of engineered tissues and tissue-related technologies.