Basics
Additive Manufacturing with Sheet Lamination
No longer limited to paper, Sheet Lamination bonds sheets of material together to form an object. Companies are now expanding to different materials for sheet lamination, exploring the growing possibilities of a process that started with gluing and stacking hundreds of colored sheets of paper together.
October 30, 2019 - Timothy W. Simpson
Materials
Material Jetting - It's Like Printing, Just in 3D!
Recent advances in materials processing capabilities have renewed interest in material jetting, the additive process that allows 3D objects to be built by placing different combinations of material drop-by-drop.
September 26, 2019 - Timothy W. Simpson
Metal AM
Material Extrusion: Now with Metal
Challenging our thinking about materials in metal additive manufacturing and the possibilities with material extrusion technology.
August 21, 2019 - Timothy W. Simpson
Materials
Additive Manufacturing via Material Extrusion
Material extrusion was the second process to be successfully commercialized. After three decades of material advancements and a diverse array of start-ups and applications, the use cases for this technology are still going strong.
August 1, 2019 - Timothy W. Simpson
Production
Additive Manufacturing — More Than Metal: How Vat Photopolymerization Started It All
Vat photopolymerization was the first AM process to be successfully commercialized. Three decades later, this technology has shown how AM is capable of scaling to volume production and making custom products on demand.
July 11, 2019 - Timothy W. Simpson
Additive Manufacturing and Metal Casting
How is additive manufacturing disrupting metal casting? A hybrid approach to consider.
July 4, 2019 - Timothy W. Simpson
Hybrid Manufacturing
Additive Manufacturing for Hard Tooling
Hybrid manufacturing is enabling tooling to be made with additive processes.
June 27, 2019 - Timothy W. Simpson
Postprocessing
Combining Additive and Subtractive Processes for Hybrid Manufacturing
At this point, we are still learning how to combine the two to optimize hybrid manufacturing.
May 29, 2019 - Timothy W. Simpson
Metal AM
Additive Manufacturing with Wire
This system has the benefits of cheaper cost and easier handling. But there can be some drawbacks as well.
April 26, 2019 - Timothy W. Simpson
Metal AM
Three Cool Uses for Directed Energy Deposition
Most machining professionals don’t like to admit that they ever make mistakes, but every now and then wouldn’t it be nice to have an “eraser” to go back and repair a gouge or fix a nicked edge? Or maybe you took off a bit too much material on that last machining pass and you’d like to add it back? Well, directed energy deposition (DED) enables you to do that and more.
March 28, 2019 - Timothy W. Simpson
Basics
What Is Directed Energy Deposition?
Analyzing directed energy deposition and powder-bed fusion provides a thorough understanding of the extra machining necessary for a “near-net shape” versus a “net shape” manufacturing process.
February 15, 2019 - Timothy W. Simpson
AM Technology
Additive Manufacturing for Large Parts
Powder-bed fusion is driving the hype for additive manufacturing right now, but it may not be the best answer. Directed energy deposition is a strong contender.
January 30, 2019 - Timothy W. Simpson