Sandia team builds telescope through additive manufacturing

Sandia’s three-year Laboratory Directed Research and Development project proved the feasibility of using additive manufacturing as an entirely new design tool, vastly different from the standard technique of moving from hand drawing to computer-assisted design to machining parts, said Ted Winrow, a mechanical engineer who led the project.
Instead of concentrating on printing precision parts, the project focused on how to put less precise 3D printed parts together with precise tools, taking advantage of the rapid prototyping, design and manufacturing possible with additive manufacturing.
“That’s the nuance that seems to get lost, that you have to design differently,” Winrow said. “It doesn’t plug into a standard design process.”