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Metal share of funded Chinese AM suppliers rises as US aerospace funding holds steady

An AMPulse analysis of equity financing from 2021 to 2025 shows diverging patterns in China and the United States. In China, the number of funded AM suppliers fell from 117 in 2021-2022 to 100 in 2024-2025, while metal-focused companies rose from 49 to 53. Their share grew from about 42% to 53%, and polymer-focused recipients dropped from 46 to 16. In the US, metal's share stayed near 28%. The number of funded US companies fell from 90 in 2021 to 61 in 2025, but aerospace and defense recipients held between 18 and 21 each year, rising to about 34% of the 2025 cohort. The analysis counts recorded recipients, not invested sums. It also notes that services make up about 53% of the $16 billion AM market in 2025 per AM Research, while service companies show a much lower rate of recorded funding events than hardware companies.

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Research

Cell geometry alone lifts resin printed auxetic lattice load capacity fourfold

Researchers at Vellore Institute of Technology compared two auxetic lattice geometries printed in the same photopolymer resin, on the same printer and under the same compression test. The star-triangular cell carried far more load than the re-entrant hexagon, with peak forces of about 2,700 N against 660 N and roughly threefold higher energy absorption. The team used an ASTM D695 based procedure and a finite element model in Abaqus, which matched a published ABS simulation within about 3 percent. The authors suggest the hexagon for cushioning uses such as implants, footwear and padding, and the star design for strength and impact resistance. The study used only four specimens per design, so the authors call for larger test batches before drawing statistical conclusions. The work isolates cell shape as the variable, a question that resin printed lattice research has rarely addressed directly.

1 source