Generalized Additive Manufacturing Process Chain

Every product development process involving an Additive Manufacturing machine requires the operator to go through a set sequence of tasks. Easy-to-use “desktop” or “3D printing” machines emphasize the simplicity of this task sequence. These desktop machines are characterized by their low cost, simplicity of use, and ability to be placed in an office environment. For these machines each step is likely to have few options and require minimal effort. However, this also means that there are generally fewer choices, with perhaps a limited range of materials and other variables to experiment with. The larger and more versatile machines are more capable of being tuned to suit different user requirements and therefore are more difficult to operate, but with a wider variety of possible results and effects that may be put to good use by an experienced operator. Such machines also usually require more careful installation in workshop environments.

This chapter will take the reader through the different stages of the process that were described in much less detail in

Chap. 1

. Where possible, the different steps in the process will be described with reference to different processes and machines. The objective is to allow the reader to understand how these machines may differ and also to see how each task works and how it may be exploited to the benefit of higher quality results. As mentioned before, we will refer to eight key steps in the process sequence.