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Additive manufacturing (AM) is among the fastest growing1 and most talked about manufacturing technologies on the planet.2,3 It is providing diverse opportunities for new product design and manufacturing. At GE, efforts such as the additively produced LEAP engine fuel nozzle4 and low-pressure turbine blade manufacturing5 are examples of how GE Aviation is leveraging these technologies in innovative ways. These are just a few illustrations of how AM is changing the manufacturing landscape and many others are described in the articles that follow.
This rapid growth and investment poses several questions for the minerals, metals, and materials community: What exactly is "additive manufacturing?'' Why has it captured the manufacturing industry imagination? How can the TMS community of materials and process technologists and leaders contribute to its growth and implementation?
At its core, AM is a suite of technologies that "build" components using digital model data. The ASTM Committee F42 on AM Technologies has defined seven different process routes as being part of the field of AM.6 Each process has its own unique benefits and challenges that derive from the thermal and chemical processing cycle and the resulting microstructure.7-9 Any discussion of the technology needs to take into account the details of the resulting materials microstructure, surface roughness, and ability to maintain engineering tolerances, as well as implementation details about reliability and cost, and potential supply chain issues.
The industrial excitement around this suite of processes is being driven by its capacity for empowering designers to focus on designing components for functionality rather than limitations of conventional processes such as casting, brazing, or forming processes. Furthermore, it is now enabling a whole new paradigm of rapid testing and product introduction wherein functional metal prototypes can be used for testing of individual components and manufacturing assembly processes (e.g., joining, forming, or machining). Using AM means product development cycles do not have to rely on traditional methods for manufacturing metallic prototypes, which can take months to produce.
This...