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Additive manufacturing, also popularly known as 3D printing, is becoming increasingly popular not only as a research tool, but also as a teaching tool and even a commodity. Modern 3D printers can easily generate 3D polymeric prototypes from computer drawings and designs. Sophisticated designs can be materialized within a significantly reduced production time without the need to resort to traditional craftsmanship or older capital-intensive manufacturing technologies. Therefore, as the technology has become more common, newer teaching approaches and business models are enabled. 

However, HKU Engineering is determined not just to be part of the unstoppable growth, instead to lead at the forefront of the growing research trend. Therefore, besides upgrading existing capabilities to professional-grade plastic 3D printers based on different technologies including PolyJet, fused deposition modeling (FDM), stereo lithography (SLA), and selective laser sintering (SLS), HKU Engineering has acquired a unique and cutting-edge metallic SLS 3D printer, under the support of a University Development Fund (UDF). While the existing facility serves the need to print 3D parts of polymeric materials with different material properties, the new metallic 3D microprinting capability allows printing of 3D metallic parts, with a fine resolution (minimum surface roughness down to 2 microns and wall thickness down to 30 microns). The ability to print fine 3D structures out of mechanically robust and electrically conductive materials, such as 316L stainless steel, creates exciting opportunities for applications including engineering, dentistry, orthopedics, sensing, energy and archaeology. 

Thus, the new printer, which is now housed on the ground floor of the Haking Wong Building and is the first of its kind in the Asia-Pacific region, will facilitate new multidisciplinary collaborations with academics and industries in the region. As the technology behind the high-resolution metallic 3D microprinting is still at an early stage with enormous demands for complementary post-processing steps, HKU Engineering can contribute its wide range of strong and relevant expertise to the relevant technology development during its most critical phase. Students, engineers, manufacturers and designers are all encouraged to learn together, harness the powerful tools available, realize their ideas and stretch their creativity.