What is 3D printing technology, How it works

Google will delete accounts that remain inactive for 2 years from Dec 1 New Delhi: Google on Saturday sent emails to its billions of users, saying the company updating the inactivity period for a Google Account to two years across all its products and services. This change starts rolling out now, and will apply to any Google Account that's been inactive,meaning it has not been signed into or used within a two-year period. An inactive account and any content in it will be eligible for deletion from December 1, 2023, the tech giant said. These changes do not impact you unless you have been inactive in your Google Account for two years or have not used your account to sign in to any Google service for over two years. While the changes go into effect today, the earliest we would enforce any account deletion would be December 2023, said Google. If the account is considered inactive, Google will send several reminder emails to both users and their recovery emails (if any have been provided) before the company takes any action or delete any account content. “These reminder emails will go out at least 8 months before any action is taken on your account. After a Google Account is deleted, the Gmail address for the deleted account cannot be used again when creating a new Google Account,said the company.The simplest way to keep a Google Account active is to sign in to the account at least once every two years. If you have signed in to your Google Account recently in the past two years, your account is considered active and will not be deleted, said the company.

New Delhi: From existing as a fictional concept in books in the 1940s to being developed in the 1980s and becoming viable in the 2000s, 3D printing has come a long way, allowing faster and more accurate construction of structures, potentially even in environments not suitable for humans such as in space.

India got its first 3D-printed post office in Bengaluru on Friday.

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3D printing in construction, called 3D construction printing (3DCP) or additive construction, uses the technology to fabricate components or entire buildings. The technique allows for speedy construction of complex structures along with lowering labour costs and producing lesser waste.

So, what is this technology? What are its applications and what are its prospects? Here is an explainer:

3D printing, also called additive manufacturing, is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a computer or a digital model and it is achieved through varied processes. Material can either be deposited, joined or solidified under computer control, with it being generally added layer by layer.

3D printing of materials, such as metals and alloys, can be employed to enhance their physical properties like strength and thermal resilience.

This has immense implications for manufacturing processes and, in turn, on sectors depending on it such as aviation and defence. The enhanced materials encourage design of fuel and energy efficient turbines and engines, according to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Engineers at the University of Arizona are developing materials that can withstand travelling at speeds at least five times faster than the speed of sound. They could, therefore, be used in 3D printing components for hypersonic vehicles in defence, they say. 3D printing processes are also being exploited by projects led by US space agency NASA and these are aimed at manufacturing rechargeable batteries using lunar and Martian soil, according to a paper published in the journal ACS Energy Letters that details their research’s progress.