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del.icio.us My Yahoo Digg this newsvine Blogger Slashdot StumbleUpon Reddit Facebook LinkedIn Twitter RSS Magazine eNewsletters Reprints/License Print Email Engineering Materials Expand Potential for Digital Manufacturing Stratasys and EOS target high-end markets, such as aircraft, with new polymer grades Doug Smock, Contributing Editor -- Design News, February 27, 2009 Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 The potential for direct digital manufacturing is heating up as leading players add high-level engineering thermoplastics to their materials' lineups. Stratasys, the leading supplier of rapid prototyping equipment by volume, is now teaming up Ultem 9085 polether imide with new machines designed for direct digital manufacturing, which is the production of parts directly from CAD files. EOS is now offering PEEK (polyetheretherketone) polymer from Victrex for its laser sintering systems. Other manufacturers, such as Z Corp. and 3D Systems, are developing stronger proprietary materials. Ultem extends the digital manufacturing process into the aircraft market in a major way. Until now, Ultem 9085 was only available for use in conventional processing methods, such as injection molding, which require expensive tooling. Manufacturing using equipment originally developed for rapid prototyping creates opportunities for design engineers to make parts even more complex than is possible with injection molds. The cost of the materials coupled with processing time, however, will limit adoption, at least for now to low-volume parts