By Frederick Claus

Additive manufacturing (or 3D printing) with metal has significantly advanced the fields of aerospace, medical and industrial manufacturing with complex geometries and expedited production by eliminating the cost and long lead times for traditional molds and tooling.

Inherent limitations of metal working processes – such as investment casting, machining or die casting – center on complexity. Each process is incapable of building one unit with many interlacing features and/or cannot produce without excessive labor and adjoining details, all of which are completely dependent on “line-of-sight” features. Shapes are left simple or, at best, weighted by additives, bulky overhanging walls and attachment fittings. By contrast, shapes produced using the additive manufacturing process termed Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) or Selective Laser Melting (SLM) incorporate the highest level of complex features without requiring line-of-sight features or attachment post-processing. Additive manufacturing offers freedom of design, and therefore a paradigm shift away from “designing for manufacturing” into manufacturing for design. Continue reading →