Additive Manufacturing Process and Their Applications for Green Technology

1. Introduction

Additive Manufacturing (AM) or Rapid manufacturing also called as Rapid prototyping is the innovative way of building up a matter by a process. This follows the nature’s principle of constructing a material by adding substances in layered sections depending upon the required condition of the end product to be formed. This is more efficient and better in comparison to the age-old method of building up a material like machining, stamping, cutting etc, Additive Manufacturing creates an end result by adding up the material. The fundamental principle of preparing a model can be classified into two steps, firstly, development of three-dimensional Computer Aided Design and secondly the fabrication of the part. The process is not as simple as it sounds. There is an immense reduction in the difficulty of manufacturing complex 3D parts when looked from a point of conventional manufacturing. The basic understanding required to handle the process requires some basic inputs of dimensional quantities and perceptive knowledge of working of the machine. The material to be used for a particular purpose should possess apt properties.

Manufacturing is all about converting material inputs into products of usage. The sustainability and the environmental assessment can be looked upon, on how efficiently the process can be carried out without detrimental effects on the surroundings. AM proves out of having an advantage of being considered as a sustainable manufacturing process which can be stated with the following reasoning:

• 1.

  The material is built up layer wise which supports in the reduction of waste material, complex geometries and lightweight materials can be easily produced which results in lesser material requirement and low energy utilization.

• 2.

  On-demand manufacturing of required parts brings down the inventory waste reduction and loss, cuts the transportation related expenses.

• 3.

  The health advantages of AM is an added benefit when compared to normal conventional forms of manufacturing, the prolonged exposure of the worker in hazardous environment is drastically reduced. The methods of manufacturing are taking new dimension in the process of developing components and end products when previewed from the point of AM. Numerous researchers are exploring the way of AM for its better sustainability, economic viability and benefits of economic and social impact.

Building of AM product involves certain generic steps to be followed starting from the preparation of CAD model until the printing of final 3D product. The steps can be summarized in the following flow chart (Figure 1) (Gibson et al., 2010).

Figure 1.

Flow chart of steps involved in AM