Additive manufacturing (AM) is a recent revolutionary trend in manufacturing, also termed 3D printing. It entails approaching production endeavours using digital processes that stack up layers of a product using precision and digital flexibility, resulting in more robust, lighter and geometric systems. AM relies on CAD software and associated scanning and execution hardware to add material in manufacturing in developing a working product that is accurate and exact to the blueprints in the original design (Azam et al., 2018). Traditional and conventional manufacturing processes heavily relied on post-processing of products such as shaping, milling, sawing, carving and machining to achieve the desired product design. AM can be described as rapid prototyping, as a subset that improved performance enables simple fabrication of complex geometries and provides room for creative and abstract design and production of previously impossible products and difficult to achieve. The success of AM is not only felt at the production level but also vivid in the improvement of production costs, production time, efficiency, and the exploration of new possibilities in products and designs (Abdulhameed et al., 2019). However, like all manufacturing processes, AM is imperfect due to the varied nature of products existing in manufacturing and industrialization, resulting in hybridization with other manufacturing processes. This including subtractive manufacturing, joining technology, transformative technology and dividing technology to achieve desired products as the technology is being improved with current and future research.
Despite all the potential associated with AM, it has yet to deliver due to critical technical issues in engineering applications that deter AM technology. This is due to infrequencies in production between concept models and prototypes vis-à-vis low production volume parts within high volume environments. Taking the example of how NASA uses 3D technology to re-engineer fuel injectors using only two parts in AM through positioning, nesting, creating support structures and slicing (Graves, 2021). The fuel injectors' success is overshadowed by the underutilizing of the printing devices specific to these products, thereby sitting idle, which is potential, time and money lost. New products require reprogramming of the AM CAD system, which results in invariance, and the infrequences make AM highly complex and intense based on the ever-changing and new demands. In delivering reliable, top-notch and safe products, AM systems and technology need to be optimized to attain repetitive and manageable costs that are adaptable o the complexity of products and processes. CAD needs to be automated with a touch of AI that will mitigate downtime errors, inconsistency and underutilization (Graves, 2021). Tentatively, AM potential, as initially described, will be a realistic and achievable industrial process adopted by most, if not all, manufacturers.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
AM takes CAD information and converts it to stereolithography (STL), resulting in computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), where products are developed using a series of sliced triangles, each made of CAD information of the products that will eventually be layered up to a final piece. AM still has a lot of work and research to become a standard manufacturing practice. There is yet the accommodation of every manufacturing material in 3D printing and the associated accuracy of each material (Wong & Hernandez, 2012). However, the industry is optimistic that with time and improved AM technology, the improvement of final products accommodating most manufacturing materials will be apparent, and future-defining with application is aerospace, medicine, and architecture. The critical ideology is the production of lightweight structures that are sturdy, efficient and cheaper. Defining AM processes include binder jetting, power bed fusion, directed energy deposition, material jetting, material extrusion, vat polymerization and sheet lamination (Prakash et al., 2018). AM technologies entail sintering, direct metal laser sintering (DMLS), direct metal laser melting (DMLM), electron beam melting (EBM) and SLA. All that work on mast industrial material increases the scope of AM product development using materials such as thermoplastics, biochemical, ceramics, metals and their combinations using various layering methods and hybridization.
In conclusion, like all new technology, a lot of research, time and investment is needed to assert AM as a revolutionary industrial application in product development without dimensional error, reduced build time, improved and accurate geometrics, minimized productions cost, weight and support volume. All these can be addressed and accommodated in the CAD process and transference to the finished prototype and working product. Whence, AM in process, technology, material, and application provides insight in the addressing of existing issues such as poor surface quality, accuracy, low speed, underutilization and hybridization with other manufacturing processes such as subtractive manufacturing (Abdulhameed et al., 2019). On the contrary, the future, success and potential realization of AM in solving all problems and improving industrial processes and products. It entails hybrid manufacturing (HM), which incorporates CAD and CAM in developing complex design and accurate products using additive and subtractive inputs under a computer-aided process planning (CAPP) system. Research and testing highlight hybridization is the future of AM that guarantees success and alleviates existing and future production problems.
References
Abdulhameed, O., Al-Ahmari, A. & Ameen, W. (2019). Additive Manufacturing: Challenges, trends, and applications. Sage Journals , Volume 11, Issue 2. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1687814018822880
Azam, F., Rani, A., Altaf, K., Rao, T. & Zaharin, H. (2018). An In-Depth Review o Direct Additive Manufacturing of Metals. Material Science and Engineering , Volume 328. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899X/328/1/012005
Graves, A. (2021). Lack of Automation is Holding Additive Back. Retrieved from Manufacturing Tomorrow : https://www.manufacturingtomorrow.com/article/2021/05/lack-of-automation-is-holding-additive-back/17067/
Prakash, K., Nancharaih, T. & Rao, V. (2018). Additive Manufacturing Techniques in Manufacturing – An Overview. Material Today , Volume 5, Issue 2, Part 1, pp 3873-3882. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2017.11.642
Wong, K. & Hernandez, A. (2012). A Review of Additive Manufacturing. International Scholarly Research Notices , Volume 2012, Article ID 208760. Doi: https://doi.org/10.5402/2012/208760
