2013年4月托福阅读材料7(最新).pdf

3D 印刷 Science and Technology Three-dimensional printing An image of the future 科技 3D 印刷 印刷未来 One of the biggest manufacturers in the world gives 3D printing a go 世界龙头机器制造商用3D 印刷术进行了一次格外成功的应用 ULTRASOUND scanners are used for tasks as diverse as examining unborn babies and searching for cracks in the fabric of aircraft. They work by sending out pulses of high-frequency sound and then interpreting the reflections as images. To do all this, though, you need a device called a transducer. 超声波扫描器的应用领域很广，小到用于检查胎儿，大到飞行器机体瑕疵检 测等。 机理过程是，通过发射高频声波脉冲信号对反射信号进行成像解读。 但 完成该过程，你不能缺少一台叫做‘压电式换能器的设备。 Transducers are made from arrays of tiny piezoelectric structures that convert electrical signals into ultrasound waves by vibrating at an appropriate frequency. Their shape focuses the waves so that they penetrate the object being scanned. The waves are then reflected back from areas where there is a change in density and on their return the transducer works in reverse, producing a signal which the scanner can process into a digital image. 压电式换能器是由具有‘压电效应的一系列敏感元件机构组成。敏感元件 机构通过‘定频震荡将电信号转换成超声波。 机构的特定外形可聚焦超声波， 对被扫描的物体产生穿透作用。 超声波会从密度发生变化的介质反射回来，这 时压电式换能器会反向操作产生信号，再经过扫描器的处理，最后进行数字成像。 To make a transducer by painstakingly micro-machining a brittle block of ceramic material can take many hours of work, though. As a result, even as the size and cost of the console that controls the scanner has fallen with advances in microelectronics (some are now small enough to fit in a doctors pocket and cost a few hundred dollars), the cost of making the probe itself remains stubbornly high—as much as ten times that of the console. 压电式换能器需要用到陶瓷材料，而精密地加工一块精细的陶瓷材料就要耗 费几个小时的工作时间。 随着微电子领域中，技术的突飞猛进，控制扫描仪的 电路板无论从体积还有成本都有很大程度的优化变小和降低。 有些电路板小到 可以装进医生口袋里面，成本也不过几百美元的价格。而制作换能