Abstract Scope |
While polymer additive manufacturing (AM) has advanced significantly over the past few decades, the limitations in material properties, speed of manufacture, and part size have relegated this technology mostly to the space of rapid prototyping rather than the legitimate production of end-use parts. Polymer composites have been identified as a potential solution to these limitations, as they offer improved properties, reduce the time required to manufacture functional parts over traditional subtractive technology, and reduce warping to lead to a larger build envelop. In this presentation, the most promising technologies for composites AM as well as the state-of-the-art and technology in this field will be reviewed. As such, mechanics, design, materials science, and processing of polymer composite AM will be discussed in the light of experiments, theory, and numerical simulations. |