Abstract
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. In recent years, Additive Manufacturing (AM), also called 3D printing, has been expanding into several industrial sectors due to the technology providing opportunities in terms of improved functionality, productivity, and competitiveness. While metal AM technologies have almost unlimited potential, and the range of applications has increased in recent years, industries have faced challenges in the adoption of these technologies and coping with a turbulent market. Despite the extensive work that has been completed on the properties of metal AM materials, there is still a need of a robust understanding of processes, challenges, application‐specific needs, and considerations associated with these technologies. Therefore, the goal of this study is to present a comprehen-sive review of the most common metal AM technologies, an exploration of metal AM advancements, and industrial applications for the different AM technologies across various industry sectors. This study also outlines current limitations and challenges, which prevent industries to fully benefit from the metal AM opportunities, including production volume, standards compliance, post processing, product quality, maintenance, and materials range. Overall, this paper provides a survey as the benchmark for future industrial applications and research and development projects, in order to assist industries in selecting a suitable AM technology for their application.
RAS ID
32703
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
2021
Volume
11
Issue
3
Funding Information
Edith Cowan University
School
School of Engineering
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Publisher
MDPI
Comments
Vafadar, A., Guzzomi, F., Rassau, A., & Hayward, K. (2021). Advances in metal additive manufacturing: A review of common processes, industrial applications, and current challenges. Applied Sciences, 11(3), article 1213. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11031213