Abstract Scope |
Additive manufacturing has come a long way in the last five decades and is revolutionizing the modern manufacturing industry. Constant improvements are made in additive technologies, improving efficiency, unit prices, and expanding material systems. AM has expanded the design space and made significant improvements within many industries. Yet it still has inherent limitations regarding capabilities and applications. For metal additive manufacturing (AM), there are three main types of process technologies: powder bed, powder feed, and wire feed. Each process has defining characteristics such as material, build procedure, build size, build tolerance, resolution of features, surface finish, etc. This talk will review the advantages and limitations of these existing technologies, and highlight the research and development efforts on AM consumables and microstructural development for these technologies, and understanding metallurgical factors that affect the quality of an AM component. Moreover, the weldability of AM components with a focus on gas tungsten arc welding and laser welding will be discussed. |