In today’s 3D Printing News Briefs, we’ll get things started with a comprehensive post-processing survey by PostProcess Technologies. Jacksonville State University is partnering with EOS Additive Minds to develop AM curriculum, and Eplus3D and UCL Rocket developed and tested a regeneratively cooled, 3D printed rocket engine. We’ll end with materials research, first by Technical University Munich, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, and Colibrium Additive for aluminum alloys in aerospace, and then a review of ultra-high-performance concrete rheological properties by China’s Southeast University and the Missouri University of Science and Technology.
PostProcess Technologies Relaunches AM Industry Post-Processing Survey
From 2018 through 2022, automated post-printing solutions provider PostProcess Technologies sent out a comprehensive Additive Manufacturing Post-Processing Survey. Now, the company is relaunching its survey to the AM industry, in order to gather insights into the critically important step of post-processing and help shape the future of AM. The survey offers data-driven insights about post-printing workflows that can help ensure customer-ready parts, such as resin, support materials, powder removal, and surface finishing. Previous iterations of this survey revealed post-processing challenges, like consistency, labor demands, time to finish parts, scaling production, and health and safety concerns. The 2025 Additive Manufacturing Post-Processing Survey will explore investment priorities, like reducing cycle times; trends in post-processing methods across various AM technologies, including material extrusion and powder bed fusion; budget allocation insights; and pain points, such as sustainability and throughput.
“Post-processing remains the most under-reported yet critical step in additive manufacturing workflows. By relaunching this survey, we aim to give the industry a clear voice in identifying obstacles, sharing best practices, and shaping the path toward a more efficient and scalable future for additive manufacturing,” said Dean VonBank, Chief Experience Officer at PostProcess Technologies.
AM industry professionals are invited to complete the survey here. The findings will later be compiled into the 2025 Additive Post-Processing Trends Report.
Jax State Expanding AM Curriculum with EOS Additive Minds Academy
Jax State metal AM lab
In order to develop and grow its AM curriculum, Jacksonville State University (Jax State) in Florida is partnering with EOS North America’s Additive Minds Academy Ignite program. This recently launched program also counts University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Columbia Gorge Community College, and Launch Canada as partners, and is meant to accelerate AM education and workforce development. The Ignite Program offers structured, scalable online and hybrid learning solutions, helping to teach the fundamentals and applications of industrial AM and giving students access to industrial-grade AM training and resources. As such, Jax State has also acquired a second EOS M 290 metal laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) printer as part of the initiative. The program offers two flexible tiers, based on a university’s access to EOS printers: AM Fundamentals, which provides access to online courses, and Certification Partner, which includes AM Fundamentals content, plus an EOSPRINT 2 introduction, local EOSPRINT SW licenses, operation certifications, and more.
“We’re excited to deepen our commitment to additive manufacturing education through the Ignite Program. By combining EOS’s industrial training resources with our expanding AM lab and faculty expertise, we’re preparing students for real-world careers in advanced manufacturing and giving them the skills they need to succeed in this rapidly growing field,” said Matt Rosser, Director of the Center for Manufacturing Support at Jax State. “With the addition of our second EOS M 290, our AM assets now total more than $3 million, underscoring our commitment to being a leader in advanced manufacturing innovation and workforce development.”
UCL Rocket & Eplus3D Design, Print, & Test Regeneratively Cooled Rocket Engine
3D printed engine and swirl injectors inside the EP-M400S
Eplus3D partnered with the student-led UCL Rocket team from University College London (UCL) to design, 3D print, and test a regeneratively cooled, bipropellant rocket engine for the Race 2 Space 2025 competition in the UK. The team is one of six UCL Racing (UCLR) teams with the university’s Mechanical Engineering department, and Eplus is the technical manufacturing partner for the Excelsior engine project, offering DfAM consultations and using LPBF at its German facility to print the engine’s injector components and thrust chamber out of AlSi10Mg on the EP-M400S quad-laser printer. There were several technical challenges the team faced, including tight dimensional tolerances, coaxial swirl injector elements, and 58 internal coolant channels in the design, which required advanced manufacturing capabilities. The material had to balance mechanical strength, density, thermal conductivity, and machinability, and a robust cooling strategy was needed so the material wouldn’t fail, was temperatures in the combustion chamber are upwards of 2,500 K. Finally, a fast and cost-efficient manufacturing process was needed for this student project and its limited timeframe.
To achieve fine internal channel resolution and smooth surfaces, a 60 µm layer thickness was used for printing, and AlSi10Mg was selected because of its roughly 165 W/m·K thermal conductivity after stress relief, which allowed for rapid heat transfer to the coolant in the interior channels. Thanks to Eplus3D’s DfAM experience, the students optimized the design for printability, fabricating it as two integrated assemblies to reduce part count and assembly complexity. The regeneratively cooled Excelsior engine successfully withstood three hot-fire tests at Airborne Engineering Ltd. for the Race 2 Space 2025 competition, and achieved its target thrust of 5kN. The team ranked fourth in the Nitrous Bipropellant category, and out of 17 engines, the Excelsior was one of only eight to survive all hot-fire tests. As Eplus3D concluded, this project showed “that advanced LPBF in AlSi10Mg can produce high-performance regeneratively cooled rocket engines within the constraints of a university project. By combining innovative design, optimised manufacturing, and rigorous testing, the collaboration between Eplus3D and UCL Rocket shows how additive manufacturing can accelerate aerospace propulsion development.
Joint Research into Industrial 3D Printed Aluminum Components for Aerospace
FRM II scientists carry out sample measurements with neutrons at the research reactor in Rez near Prague. From left to right: Dr Seda Ulusoy, Dr Massimo Fritton, Simon Sebold, Dr Steffen Neumeier (FAU), Dr Ralph Gilles, Dr Stefan Engel; foreground: Dr Gergely Farkas
Funded with €1.17 million by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space (BMFTR), the new AlaAF rUM Transfer research project is investigating how industrial 3D printing can manufacture lightweight, resilient aluminum components for aerospace. Colibrium Additive, Technical University of Munich (TUM) and its research reactor FRM II, and the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) are working together to jointly develop solutions for the LPBF process, which offers high design freedom but can’t be used with high-strength aluminum alloys because they typically crack once cooled. The team is focusing on a new approach, where special additives in metal powder chemically react during 3D printing and form finely distributed ceramic particles in the sub-micrometer range. These particles act as “micro-builders,” influencing crystal growth in the powder to reduce crack formation. This would make it possible to print aluminum alloys for industrial applications that were once considered impossible to print.
Colibrium is contributing its industrial AM technology, working with FAU and TUM to develop LPBF process parameters. FAU is analyzing the printed materials and their mechanical properties with microscopic methods, while FRM II researchers are completing quality testing with specialized neutron methods, such as neutron imaging (radiography and tomography) and neutron diffraction, which enables precise determination of phase distribution and internal stresses. Plus, a special testing machine developed at FRM II can realistically simulate industrial operating conditions for material behavior recording. According to Dr. habil. Ralph Gilles, project manager at TUM and spokesperson for the consortium, “Neutrons have a high penetration depth and are therefore ideal for analysing large, additively manufactured components for industry – a task that would be impossible with other techniques.”
Review of Advances in Rheological Properties of Ultra-High-Performance Concrete
Microstructural view of the increase in static yield stress with rest time. Image: Le Teng, Kamal H. Khayat, Jiaping Liu
Researchers from China’s Southeast University and the Missouri University of Science and Technology recently published a review of the advancements in tailoring the rheological properties of ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC), and how to optimize its performance. UHPC, an advanced composite material, is great for civil engineering applications due to its high strength and durability. But, its high solid volume fraction and low water content can make it challenging to achieve the necessary rheological properties in methods like pumping, spraying, and 3D printing. The researchers explain how a number of chemical, physical, and physicochemical factors, like aggregate characteristics, water-to-binder ratio, and chemical admixtures, can affect UHPC’s viscosity, yield stress, structural build-up, and thixotropy. They also discuss the difficulties in characterizing the material’s rheological properties, such as the plug flow effect, and look into the effects of several constituents on its rheological properties, such as adding fillers like limestone powder to improve packing density. Finally, they discuss strategies for tailoring UHPC’s rheological properties for specific applications, including how to optimize the material for 3D printing.
“Ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) with adapted rheology continues to attract interest considering the requirement for novel processing techniques such as self-consolidating, pumping, spraying, and three-dimensional (3D) printing. The rheology of UHPC is complex due to its high solid volume fraction, low water content, and wide range of constituent materials that affect its flow properties. This work provides guidance for tailoring the mixture proportioning of UHPC to secure proper rheological properties and performance of UHPC for various applications,” the researchers explain in the abstract of their paper.