3D Printing Breaks Into The Garment Industry

Recently, 3D printer has become a hot topic in the field of science and technology, industry and art. Some media said: "no matter what you think, as long as you use 3D software to do it, typing 3D printers can become entities." Economics believes that it will "promote the third industrial revolution with other digital production modes".

As a rapid prototyping technology, 3D printing has a long history and has been developing rapidly in recent years, thanks to the progress of science and technology and the growth of market demand. Its advantages are obvious: first, it can produce according to the design and do whatever it wants to, and truly realize the individuation; two, it is a molding, rapid manufacturing, eliminating the traditional process of multi-step operation; and the three is the incremental method instead of the traditional decrement method, which saves raw materials and basically has no waste.

At present, in some fields, such as models, parts, electronic products, toys, medical supplies, dentistry, cultural relic duplication, movie tour props, 3D printing technology has been applied in a real way, and its next development is giving people boundless daydream.

　　 Keen expectation of garment manufacturing

Back to the title of this article: "can clothes print 3D?" this problem may be beyond some people's imagination. However, there are media about 3D printing swimsuit, underwear, and so on. Latest fashion The report, of course, also has COSPLAY clothing, claiming to be able to "get in the pattern and get out of clothes". Some experts believe that printing clothing is feasible, and its prospects are expected.

Looking back at the development of garment manufacturing, the tailor's "single volume and single cut" was custom-made in the past. Later in the industrial age, mass production was realized and mass production was carried out on the production line. Now we advocate mass customization, so that the production line can be adapted to small batch and multiple varieties. In the information age today, if 3D clothing printing technology is practical, with 3D human body measurement, CAD, CAPP and other technologies, automation will be achieved by "single quantity and single cutting". Everyone can become tailoring master and tailor tailored clothes for himself. This is the new technology eagerly anticipated by the clothing industry.

The key problems need to be solved urgently.

　　 clothing The product form, raw materials and usage requirements are quite different from other products, and have very distinct industry characteristics. Therefore, there are different requirements for 3D printing technology.

The first is raw materials, which is a bottleneck problem. The raw material of the fabric is natural fiber and chemical fiber, which is made of woven or knitted fabric, and then sewn into clothing. This traditional process is obviously not suitable for 3D printing, and only the nonwoven technology has some similarities with this. At present, it is necessary to develop new material for chemical fiber, which is suitable for the dissolving and forming requirements of 3D printing consumables. It can match appropriate colors and reach the relevant standards of textiles, and is suitable for people to wear.

Secondly, the printing equipment should adapt to the flexible characteristics of clothing materials, and can spray uniform and thin objects, and the area is larger. Therefore, specialized equipment is necessary.

In order to make the printed garments meet the requirements of wearing, we should also study the finishing technology and necessary connection technology for printed products.

Finally, there should be a series of technologies, such as 3D anthropometry, clothing CAD, CAPP, related clothing database and so on.

In short, the key to the practicability of 3D printing clothing lies in the extent to which these technologies are achieved. In order to achieve the goal of practicality, we can adopt the combination of production, teaching and research, find out the breakthrough points and research direction, overcome the difficult problems of chemical fiber and new materials, and give special support when necessary. The development of special equipment is mainly based on printer manufacturers, combined with garment technology experts and design experts, so as to drive the development of related supporting industries.

　　 Optimistic outlook and rational analysis

From the point of view of market, due to the improvement of people's living standard, the increase of clothing consumption level, the enhancement of fashion concept, and the demand for socialized manufacture and personalized production of clothing, we can say that the market prospect is optimistic and the potential is considerable.

From the supplier side analysis, garment manufacturing industry in recent years committed to industrial transformation and upgrading, high technology universal application, 3D human body measurement technology, mass customization technology, agile manufacturing technology, molding technology and other initial results, and formed a fairly good application basis. On the other hand, the 3D printer manufacturing industry is getting more and more attention in China. Recently, the 3D printing technology industry alliance has been established.

After solving the key technical problems, 3D printing The business model is also worth considering. It can be envisaged that 3D printers are not impossible to enter the homes of ordinary people, but the reality is to take the way of store operation and provide one to one services for the needs of customers. It can also learn from the SAAS mode and lease online, which is more flexible and extensive. If it can be popularized, it is the ideal form of modern service industry.

Does 3D printing, like some predictions, "replace the traditional manufacturing mode and disrupt the manufacturing mode of production"? This requires rational analysis of the characteristics of each industry. According to the above analysis, it is still a long time for this technology to be widely used in garment industry. Even on that day, its single, small batch, personalized and networked production mode decided that it is a complementary and complementary relationship with large-scale garment manufacturing, rather than a substitute relationship.

3D printing clothing is our good expectation. The achievement of our goal depends on many efforts. The prospect is optimistic, but we need rational analysis.