Remotec and DeRoyal Industries, two East Tennessee companies, have been approved to use Department of Energy-funded Manufacturing Demonstration Facility to help build robots used by first responders and medical devices to help set difficult fractures. The companies will use the facility’s 3-D printers to “print” three dimensional components from computer models. The 3-D printing technology eliminates the traditional cutting away of material that is necessary to produce equivalent components. This is expected to reduce energy use and materials cost by 50-90 percent.
Read the full article at: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/feb/04/local-manufacturers-benefit-from-labs