Additive manufacturing technology: the status, applications, and prospects

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM) has first emerged in 1987 with the invention of stereolithography. The AM is an important, rapidly emerging, manufacturing technology that takes the information from a computer-aided design (CAD) and builds parts in a layer-by-layer style. As this technology offers many advantages such as manufacturing of complex geometries, reducing manufacturing cost and energy consumption, it has transformed manufacturing from the mass production to the mass customization. Also, it has found wide applications in several fields although some drawbacks. This paper presents the state of the art of the different AM processes, the material processing issues, and the post-processing operations. A comparison between AM and conventional processes is presented as well. We finish by presenting some prospects of this technology such as hybrid manufacturing and 4D printing.