Preface

It is well-known that the technology is rapidly moving towards 3D printing to ease the manufacturing processes and produce the parts with high quality and high production rate. 3D printing or additive manufacturing is being utilized everywhere in the manufacturing process of parts in order to avoid any difficulties. It is expected that the additive manufacturing processes can bring about another industrial revolution. 3D printing methods mark a revolution in various manufacturing methods that produce large-scale individual parts and involve mixed series production of multiple components.

This book, “Advances in Additive Manufacturing Processes,” provides insights into various 3D printing/additive manufacturing processes and the basic knowledge of the techniques and their applications with relevant examples. The improvements and advancements of each method and their achievements with the practical experimental data have been discussed.

Moreover, the recent developments, defects, and challenges are the key topics to explore in the current book. It is advantageous to acquire near-net shapes of complicated parts using additive manufacturing with the desired mechanical properties. It is well known that the additive manufacturing parts' fatigue properties are minimal compared to machining parts. The formation of defects, porosity and the non-fused region affect the mechanical properties of the additively manufactured components, and hence it is essential to diminish such hostile effects. The book is very useful for the current manufacturing industries. It provides recent updates and guidelines for the additive manufacturing processes to be adopted in order to increase productivity and reduce the manufacturing cost.

In this book, eight kinds of 3D printing/additive manufacturing processes are provided, which are the manufacturing industry's significant processes. A detailed description of the processes and their improvements according to the practical applications in current manufacturing industries is given precisely.